The King of Elfland's Daughter
by Speaker-to-Customers
Summary: 'Tabula Avatar' universe, sequel to 'Debt of Blood' - don't read it if you haven't read that first. The NCIS Major Case Response Team investigate the brutal murder of a Marine. Their prime suspect is a Congolese immigrant named Cierre LuaLua - exotic, dangerous, and with very unusual ears.
1. One: Sergeant Slaughter

Author's note: this story is a sequel to 'Debt of Blood' and won't make sense if you haven't read that story. In NCIS continuity this takes place during Season 5 between the episodes 'Corporal Punishment' and 'Tribes'. I had moved Stargate SG-1 continuity by a couple of years, as I stated in 'Debt of Blood', and then I've moved it another six months because otherwise Jack's second promotion could not legitimately have taken place. This story, therefore, takes place early in Season 9 of SG-1.

**One: Sergeant Slaughter**

"You're looking a little rough, Probie," Tony DiNozzo remarked. He most definitely did not look rough; his glossy dark hair was brushed sleekly down, his casually elegant clothes were unblemished, and his eyes were clear. "Out on the town last night? Nah, I can't see it. I bet you just stayed up all night playing on your computer."

"I did not stay up all night," Tim McGee denied. His fair hair was slightly awry and a little line of stubble on one cheek showed where his shaving had not been as thorough as it might have been. "Okay, maybe I stayed up a little later than I should have done, but I've had five hours sleep. That's enough to get me through the day." He tried to stifle a yawn but failed. "And I wasn't playing. I was doing serious research."

Ziva David looked up from her computer and snorted. "I think Tony has it right. You were playing with your elfs and dwarfs, were you not?"

"That would be 'elves' and 'dwarves', actually, Ziva," Tim corrected her. "And no, I wasn't."

A crease appeared between Ziva's eyebrows. "Elves, yes," she conceded, "but 'dwarfs' I know is right. 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'."

"These days, since 'The Lord of the Rings', everybody says 'dwarves'," Tim insisted.

"Elves, dwarves, and hobbits," Tony said. "It's a hell of a way for a grown man to spend his evenings. Although I suppose elves are better than stumpy guys with beards or hairy feet. Liv Tyler was a pretty hot elf chick in that 'Lord of the Rings' movie. Are there hot elf babes in your games, Elf-lord?"

"Why? Are you thinking of playing?" Tim asked.

"Kibbitzing, maybe, if the visuals are good enough," Tony said, "but I've got better things to do than playing computer Dungeons and Dragons."

"You could try working," a voice said from behind him. Gibbs. "Grab your swords and your crossbows, adventurers, and saddle up. Dead Marine."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Tim looked at the dumpster where the body had been found and gulped. He knew what was coming but didn't say anything.

"McGee," Gibbs said, exactly as Tim had predicted, "get in there and take pictures."

"Yes, Boss," Tim assented. He clambered into the dumpster, grimacing as his suit came in contact with the rusty metal of the dumpster's edge, and started examining the scene and taking pictures. Luckily the dumpster must have been emptied recently and, apart from the corpse, there was very little garbage there. He was able to avoid getting any dirt on his clothes other than the original streaks of rust.

The dead man had been an impressive physical specimen. Tim estimated that he would have stood a couple of inches over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and well muscled. The bloodstained rip in his shirt, just under the ribcage, implied that he'd been stabbed. Tim raised his eyebrows. Either the Marine had been taken by surprise or the killer was extremely formidable. Making a frontal attack with a hand weapon, against a trained and obviously strong Marine, was a tough proposition. However it wasn't Tim's job, at this early stage in the investigation, to make assumptions and so he went back to making a careful examination of everything visible.

When he had done everything he could he climbed out of the dumpster and went to rejoin the others. Tony and Ziva had photographed pretty much every square inch of the alley, including of course the patch of dried blood that was, presumably, the site where the stabbing had taken place. Now they were questioning the bar cleaner who had found the body, when he went out to dump the night's trash, and the Metro cops who had been the first responders and had spotted that the dead man was a Marine. Gibbs was looking on, sipping at a coffee that he had acquired by some mysterious osmosis, and waiting for the arrival of the Medical Examiner.

"Boss," Tim called, as he approached Gibbs, "I think I've noticed something significant."

Gibbs merely raised an eyebrow.

Tim pointed at the rust streaks on his suit. "See these? I couldn't see any sign of rust on the victim's clothes," he reported. "Maybe there are some traces underneath him, I guess, but if there aren't it means that he went into the dumpster without touching the sides. And that would mean he was thrown in. He's a big guy, Boss. Too big for one person to pick up and throw. There would have to have been at least two people involved. Two killers or one plus an accomplice."

Gibbs nodded. "You could be right," he said, "but we'll see what's under him once Ducky's finished with the body where it lies. You get busy doing your thing and pull up his service records. And here comes Ducky now."

The Medical Examiner's truck trundled up and Doctor Mallard, followed by his assistant Jimmy Palmer, exited. "And what do you have for me today this fine winter morning, Jethro?" Ducky asked.

"Dead Marine in the dumpster," Gibbs replied. "Looks like a stabbing."

"Oh, dear," said Ducky. "I do hate it when a young man's life is cut short. And I am not overly keen on climbing into skips. I'm not as young as I was and, frankly, the activity that I think you Americans would call dumpster-diving has never been a hobby of mine. I think I may have to utilize a step-ladder."

Gibbs turned his attention back to Tim. "What have you found, McGee?"

"Not much, Boss," Tim admitted, looking up from his PDA. "Gunnery Sergeant Michael Sherman, age 34, born in Astoria, Oregon. That's all I've got. There's a lock on his records that I can't get past from here. I'll need to be at my desk computer to get anything more."

Gibbs didn't express his disappointment verbally but the way his eyebrows descended, and the set of his lips, made his feelings clear. "There's a security camera just back there," he said. "It doesn't cover the murder scene but it should show who left the bar by the back door. Get me the footage."

"On it, Boss," Tim said, and scurried off.

Jimmy Palmer had brought a small ladder out of the truck and was positioning it against the dumpster for Ducky's use. Gibbs strolled in that direction. He examined the edge of the dumpster and ran a finger over the metal. "McGee brought up a good point," he said to Dr Mallard. "I want to know if there are any rust streaks, or paint scrapings, on the underside of the body that would have come from the dumpster rim rather than the base."

"Very well, Jethro, I'll bear that in mind," Ducky said. "I take it he believes the body was thrown in without touching the sides? That would be an impressive feat of strength, for a lone killer, and so it would imply multiple assailants. Or else we are looking for Tarzan of the Apes."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Tim put a picture up on the overhead display. "Gunnery Sergeant Michael Sherman," he said. The screen showed a white man, his brown hair in a 'high and tight' Marine buzz-cut, grey-eyed and handsome in a rugged way. "Currently attending a course at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico. Before that, for the past four years, he was assigned to something called Project Blue Book. I hit a brick wall there. It's classified way beyond my access level. The only thing I managed to find out is that it's run out of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado and it took everything I had even to find that much. Beyond that… I've got zip. Nada."

"Go see Director Shepard, ask her to see what she can pry loose," said Gibbs. "What else do we have?"

"The course doesn't run at weekends," Tim continued, "and he was free to go pretty much anywhere he liked. I've tracked down a couple of guys from the same course and they tell me he mentioned that he was meeting a girl. But he never told them her name. Or much about her at all."

"We'll talk to them later," Gibbs said. "Anything else?"

"Not a lot," Tim admitted. "His phone's pretty new and there isn't much on it that could be relevant. A couple of missed calls, two-thirty-eight a.m. and two-fifty-six, might be an indicator of the time of death. The CCTV footage is pretty poor but Abby's busy cleaning it up. That's all I have for now."

Gibbs turned to Tony and Ziva and raised an eyebrow.

"The bar staff confirm he was with a girl," Tony reported, "and she sounds pretty distinctive. Tall, wearing skin-tight leather pants and top, African-American, in fact they say she had the blackest skin they'd ever seen, but her hair was white. And I don't mean with age; she looked young enough to get carded. Long, straight, pure white hair."

"Carded? So she showed them ID?"

"A US passport," Ziva said, "but they do not remember the name on it except that it sounded foreign."

"They were only interested in making sure she was over twenty-one," Tony said, "and she was. And we had to roust them out of bed – it's still way early for people who were serving bar until three in the morning. Maybe they'll remember more if we go back to them when they've been up and around a while."

"Credit card slips?" Gibbs asked.

"She paid cash," Tony answered. "Sorry, Boss, no paper trail there."

"They did remember that the girl and Sherman did not leave together," Ziva added. "She left first and he followed a few minutes later."

"Alone?"

"Yes, she left alone and then he too left alone," Ziva confirmed. "They think it was shortly before two."

Gibbs nodded. "We need to speak to her."

"It shouldn't be too hard to track her down," Tony said. "There can't be too many people around with jet-black skin and white hair."

"Unless it is a wig, Tony," Ziva pointed out. "Like those of, for instance, Little Kim."

"That's Lil' Kim," Tony corrected her, "but, yeah, good point."

"Wig or no wig, find her," Gibbs ordered. "Start with taxis, hotels, you know the drill."

"On it, Boss," Tony said.

Gibbs nodded again. "Ducky ought to have something for me by now," he said. "Track down that girl – and, McGee, find out more about the victim."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Ah, Jethro," Ducky greeted, as Gibbs entered the autopsy room, "how does the hunt for Tarzan of the Apes proceed?"

Gibbs raised his eyebrows. "What makes you say that?"

"Young Timothy's suggestion that the body was hurled into the skip is corroborated by the evidence," Ducky replied, "as there are no rust marks anywhere on the clothing that could have come from it being dragged or pushed across the edges of the container. There is dirt from the floor of the skip – the dumpster – but that is quite different. However I see no reason to hypothesize multiple assailants and every reason to deduce that the killer was possessed of quite extraordinary strength. Easily sufficient to lift and throw even a man as large as was Gunnery Sergeant Sherman."

He pointed to the chest of the corpse on the autopsy table. "First, the cause of death. A single knife thrust that penetrated below the ribs and angled up to reach the heart. The blade was approximately eight inches long and was driven in up to the hilt."

"It's a soft target, Ducky," Gibbs pointed out. "All it means is that the killer knew how to use a knife."

"Exhibit two," Ducky continued. "Our Marine was struck on the right shoulder by a relatively small, rounded, blunt object. The pommel of the knife, I would expect. The blow was delivered with such force that the shoulder joint was, quite literally, shattered. His arm would have been rendered useless immediately. In fact I doubt if he would have ever regained use of the arm without reconstructive surgery."

"And half of his defenses were taken out in one blow," Gibbs said.

"Quite so," Ducky said. "And as for his ability to defend himself with his remaining arm – take a look at this, Jethro." He took hold of the dead man's forearm and turned it so that the inner surface was uppermost.

Gibbs came up to the table and bent down to look closely at the arm. "Finger marks," he observed. "The killer must have quite a grip."

"Indeed," said Ducky. "When you take into account that the process of bruising would have stopped immediately upon death, which must have come within seconds of the knife thrust to the heart, the force applied to the arm must have been considerable. A literally 'vice-like grip' rather than being merely a metaphor." He removed his glasses, fiddled with them for a moment, and then replaced them. "The marks appear to have been made by a rather slim hand. One might almost take it for that of a woman."

"So, not Tarzan of the Apes but Xena Warrior Princess," Gibbs said.

"Ah, yes, I believe that I understand the reference, although it is not a television show that I have watched," Ducky said. "It is possible, I suppose, but the odds are against it. Women simply don't have that kind of upper body strength. No, it is far more likely that we are looking for a man who, although his hands may be slim, is heavily muscled. Someone, I would say, resembling the Marine Corporal you encountered recently who was abusing steroids."

"Corporal Werth? Hmm. Maybe I'd better check to see if he ever served with Gunny Sherman," Gibbs mused, "and where he is now. Although it would be a hell of a coincidence."

"He does fit the physical profile of the killer," Ducky said, "but I hardly think he will be the only one. Admittedly men with the necessary strength are not numerous but I can think of a few. Olympic hammer-throwers and shot-putters, for instance. Come to think of it, there were female hammer-throwers competing for the former East Germany who could well have been strong enough to inflict those injuries – although their femininity was a matter of debate and subject to repeated testing by the international sporting authorities."

Gibbs was used to Dr Mallard's digressions and how to steer him back on track. "Anything you can tell me about the weapon?" he pressed.

"A double-edged, spear-pointed, knife approximately eight inches long and two inches wide at the hilt," Ducky answered. "Extremely sharp and with no serrations on the blade. Not a survival knife; I would say it is designed for only one purpose. Killing." He raised his right hand to his face and stroked his chin with his index finger. "That could also apply to the murderer of Gunnery Sergeant Sherman. A highly trained and ruthlessly efficient killer with formidable strength and combat skills. Do be careful, Jethro, and warn our young colleagues to be equally careful. I sense that we are facing someone against whom the slightest mistake could be instantly fatal."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"I've got a hit on the girl, Boss," Tony reported. "A taxi-driver remembers picking up a girl who fits the description, back of the club, around two. He dropped her at the Hyatt Arlington."

"Then why are you still here, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked. "Ziva, you go with him."

"I shall drive," Ziva said.

"No way," Tony objected. "I want us to get there alive."

"I will get us there _fast_," Ziva countered, "and I believe that Gibbs said that we were to hurry."

"You're bickering, not hurrying," Gibbs put in. "Move, both of you."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Cierre LuaLua," the receptionist informed them. "Room 419."

"Unusual name," Tony remarked. The receptionist shrugged.

"Is she in her room?" Ziva asked.

"I think so," said the receptionist. "She's pretty noticeable and I saw her going in to breakfast pretty late. I haven't noticed her going past since. But I wouldn't swear to it. I could easily have missed her if I was dealing with someone checking out or whatever." She handed them a blank room card. "You'll need this to operate the elevator."

"Thank you for your co-operation," Ziva said, as she accepted the card.

"Were you quoting from 'Robocop'?" Tony asked, as they left the reception desk and headed for the elevators.

"If so it was unintentional," Ziva said. "I presume you are referring to a movie? I have not seen it. There are more important things for me to do with my time."

"Hey, you can pick up useful tips from movies," Tony said, as he pressed the button to call the elevator. "Like, there's one scene, I think it was in a Schwarzenegger movie, where the bad guys go up in one elevator as the good guy comes down in the other and they miss each other. Or was it the other way around?"

"If you wish us to go up in separate elevators we can do so," Ziva said, "but that would not be efficient. Especially as the receptionist gave us only the one card."

"Fine, but don't blame me if we miss her the way it happened in the movie," Tony said, "and I don't think Gibbs would see the funny side. Oh, crap, I've jinxed us." He dithered for a moment before joining Ziva in the elevator.

They ceased their bickering as they approached Room 419. Music, a gentle rock song that Tony vaguely remembered as having been featured on trailers for 'Grey's Anatomy', could be faintly made out through the door.

"She seems to be in," said Ziva. She banged on the door, keeping her body to the side so that any shots from within would miss her, and called out "Federal Agents! We need to talk."

The music stopped. "Federal Agents? That is police?" an accented female voice replied from within the room.

"NCIS," Tony called. "Navy police. Cierre LuaLua? Open the door, please, we need to ask you some questions."

"I am not in Navy," came the reply. "What you – what do you – want to ask?"

"We'll explain once you open the door," said Tony. "We're not going to stand here and shout our questions."

"Very well," the room's occupant replied. She opened the door, to admit the agents, and backed away ahead of them as they came in.

Ziva entered first, holding up her NCIS identity card, and Tony followed her. They saw a young woman, wearing grey cargo pants and a white sweatshirt, who was some three or four inches taller than Ziva. Her hair was snow-white, slightly wavy and not looking at all like a wig, and her skin was just as jet black as the witnesses had described. She had eyes that were a startling amber color, like those of a lioness, and she fixed the two agents with a somewhat disconcerting stare. Her left hand was out of sight behind her back.

"Well?" said the exotic woman. "What do you want?"

"Special Agent DiNozzo," Tony introduced himself, "and Officer David. You were at a bar on DuPont Circle last night with Marine Gunnery Sergeant Michael Sherman."

"I was," Cierre LuaLua confirmed. She stopped there and merely looked, impassively, at the two agents.

"Where did you meet him?" Ziva asked.

"Colorado Springs," Cierre answered.

"So you've known him a while?" Tony said. He hadn't expected that answer.

"Three years," Cierre said.

"Did you come to Washington to meet him?" Tony asked.

"No," Cierre replied.

"Lady, if you're going to just give one word answers to every question this is going to take all day," Tony said. "I have other things to do, and I guess you do too, so I suggest you stop talking like a freaking robot."

"What do you have in your left hand?" Ziva asked suddenly. She tensed, ready for action, and moved closer to the other woman.

"This," Cierre said, bringing her hand into view. She was holding a nine-inch spear-pointed knife. "You might…"

Ziva grabbed for the hand and went for a Krav Maga disabling lock. To her astonishment the black woman went with the move and twisted out of the lock, dropping the knife in the process, and struck with the heel of her right hand to Ziva's jaw.

Ziva managed to ride the blow but her head was jolted back and her NCIS cap fell from her head. She retaliated with a jab to the solar plexus. Cierre ignored the strike and seized Ziva's arm with fingers that felt like steel bars. She pulled the Israeli girl forward into a rising knee-strike that drove the wind from Ziva's lungs. Ziva gasped for breath but still managed to deliver a head-butt to Cierre's jaw. It rocked Cierre slightly but didn't stop her lashing the back of her right fist into Ziva's face. Ziva wobbled, remained on her feet through sheer willpower, and tried to hook a leg behind Cierre's for a trip. It didn't work. The tall black woman wrenched Ziva's arm around and forced her down onto her knees. Cierre raised her right hand for a chop aimed at the back of Ziva's neck.

"Freeze!" Tony yelled. He had his gun out and was aiming it between Cierre's eyes. "Stop or I'll shoot!"

Cierre obeyed, standing as still as a statue with her arm still poised for a blow, and maintaining her grip on Ziva's arm.

"Let her go!" Tony ordered. "Back off."

Cierre released her hold and Ziva slumped forward. She put out a hand to stop herself from hitting the floor, knelt for a moment still panting for breath, and then, as Cierre moved back, Ziva clambered to her feet and hastily moved out of Tony's line of fire.

"I… do… not believe it," Ziva said. "She is as strong… as Corporal Werth."

"She kicked your ass worse than he did," Tony said.

"I won that fight against Corporal Werth," Ziva protested.

"I remember it more as a draw," said Tony, "but you sure didn't win this one. I think we'd better take her in."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Cierre LuaLua," Gibbs read. "Born 1982 in Kinshasa, Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of Congo – but a naturalized US citizen as of October 2005. Employed as a civilian consultant to the US Air Force. Based at… Cheyenne Mountain. McGee? Have you come up with anything on that 'Project Blue Book' yet?"

"Not much," Tim admitted. "Even Director Shepard isn't really getting anywhere. What we have, so far, is that it's a scientific project dealing with Deep Space Radar Telemetry. Originally it was commanded by Major-General George Hammond, USAF, next there was a civilian called Dr Elizabeth Weir in charge, and then, a year and a half ago, Brigadier-General Jonathan O'Neill took over. He's just been promoted to Lieutenant-General and transferred to the Pentagon."

"From O-7 straight to O-9? That's not usual," Gibbs commented. "Wait a minute. Jonathan O'Neill with two Ls? _Jack_ O'Neill?"

"You know him, Boss?" Tony asked.

"I've heard of him," Gibbs said. "Air Force Special Operations. Had a rep as a pretty tough customer for a Chair Force officer. What would he be doing running a science project about deep space? That's about as likely as…"

"As you doing it, Boss?" Tony suggested.

Gibbs allowed himself to show the merest hint of a smile. "That's not a bad analogy," he said. "Gunnery Sergeant Sherman seems pretty out of place there too. And this… Cierre LuaLua. What's a Congolese immigrant got to offer a space research program?"

"Her documents say she's a translator," Tim said.

"For what? They speak French in the DRC," Gibbs said. "The Air Force must have thousands of people who speak French and I can't see how any African languages she speaks would have any relevance at all to space. Some sort of Black Ops in Africa, maybe. Deep Space Telemetry has 'cover story' written all over it. And I have a feeling that whatever they hired her for has nothing to do with her languages. More to do with the way she managed to beat Ziva."

"I underestimated her," Ziva said. She was cradling her left arm in her right hand. "I would not have believed that a woman could be so strong."

"How's your arm, Ziva?" Gibbs asked.

"Sore," Ziva admitted.

"Go down and get Ducky to take a look at it," Gibbs ordered. "No, we'll both go."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"My word," Dr Mallard said, as he looked at the finger marks on Ziva's arm. "You are going to have some nasty bruising, my dear."

"Do we have a match, Ducky?" Gibbs asked.

"I do believe that we have, Jethro," Ducky confirmed. "The marks on Gunnery Sergeant Sherman's arm are not clear enough for me to be certain but there is certainly a strong resemblance. The likelihood is that the young woman arrested by Anthony and Ziva is, indeed, she whom you dubbed Xena Warrior Princess. The killer."

"It's nowhere near enough for a conviction," Gibbs said, "but it's a start. Now I'll head up to Interrogation and ask her a few questions. No, scratch that. I'll ask her a _lot_ of questions."

To be continued…

Disclaimer: 'NCIS' was created by Donald P. Belisario and Don McGill and is owned by CBS Television Studios. 'Stargate: SG1' was created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner and is owned by MGM Television Entertainment and Gekko Productions. Cierre was created by Ed Greenwood and Jason Carl in the 'Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms' game accessory 'The Silver Marches'.


	2. Two: Private Investigations

**Two: Private Investigations**

"Is she wearing… Spock ears?" Tony commented. "I thought I noticed something when she was fighting Ziva but I was a little preoccupied at the time."

Tim moved closer to the one-way glass window and peered into the Interrogation Room. "Not Spock ears, Tony," he said, "she's made up as an Elf. Maybe a Night Elf from World of Warcraft but their ears are longer than that and they don't have white hair. I'd say she's meant to be a Drow. A Dark Elf from Dungeons and Dragons."

"Yes, she's definitely a Drow," Abby confirmed. She'd emerged from her lab to commiserate with Ziva over her defeat and had hung around to take a look at the suspect. "It's strange; I'm pretty sure there aren't any fandom conventions around here before March."

"Why would she dress up as an Elf?" Ziva wondered.

"It's called Cosplay," Tim explained. "Fans dress up as characters from comics, or movies, or video games. Usually they do it to attend conventions, like the big ComicCon in San Diego, or when they meet up with friends to role-play. You wouldn't often find someone dressed up in character in their hotel room on a Saturday morning."

"The Drow are Evil," Abby said. "Maybe she's in character because she was planning to do something hinky."

"She has a pass to the _Pentagon_," Gibbs said. "If she had something hinky planned I want to know about it. McGee, how'd you like to do the initial interrogation?"

"Me, Boss?"

"See anyone else named McGee around here? You seem to know something about this Cosplay thing and I don't. Maybe you can use it to get her talking. I can always take over later if you don't get anywhere."

"Sure thing, Boss," Tim said. "Thanks."

"How did you get on with the CCTV footage, Abbs?" Gibbs asked.

"All done, Gibbs," the forensic scientist reported. "I can confirm that the suspect left about five minutes before Sherman. There was another tall girl, maybe even taller than me, went out in between the two. But she didn't look anything like the evil Drow who hurt Ziva." She glared through the window at Cierre, who was sitting motionless and impassive, and then enveloped Ziva in a hug.

"The suspect left first, then another girl, and then Sherman? The other girl must have seen something," Gibbs said, "even if was only LuaLua hanging around waiting for Sherman. She could be our most important witness. Get me some stills of her, Abbs. I'll send someone back to the bar later, when the evening staff are in, and we'll see if we can get an ID."

"Will do, Gibbs," Abby said, releasing Ziva. "I'm running a test on the Drow's knife right now. There are definitely traces of blood on it and I should have confirmation soon that it matches Sherman's. And I'm running her fingerprints too."

Tim took another look into the interrogation room. "Is it necessary for her still to be handcuffed?" he said. "We don't usually keep suspects cuffed when we're questioning them."

"Most suspects can't beat Ziva in a fight," Tony said. "She'd eat you alive, Probie. I wouldn't go in there alone unless she was chained up like Hannibal Lecter."

"Leave them on for the moment, McGee," Gibbs said. "See how it goes and maybe you can let her out of them if she acts reasonable."

"Sure thing, Boss," Tim said. He stretched his arms out in front of him and cracked his knuckles. "Okay, I'm going in."

Abby drew herself up to her full five feet ten, plus the extra inches from her platform-soled boots, and looked him straight in the eye. "Make that Drow confess, Elf-Lord."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Tim sat down in front of Cierre and rested his arms on the table. "Uh, hello," he said. "I'm Special Agent Tim McGee and I want to ask you some questions."

"I am Cierre of – I am called Cierre LuaLua," Cierre replied, "and I too have questions."

"Well, maybe we can help each other out," Tim said. "You answer my questions and I'll see what I can do about answering yours."

"No," she said, the word coming out sounding more like 'nau', "you answer mine first, riv – Special Agent, then I will answer yours."

Tim raised his right hand to his face and scratched his ear. "Did you just nearly call me _rivvil_?"

"I did," Cierre admitted. "You speak Ilythiiri?"

"A little," Tim said. "Just the common phrases, like _rivvil_ and _jaluk_ and _vith'os_. Mainly the ones that crop up in Viconia's dialogue in the Baldur's Gate games." He was being economical with the truth; in fact his knowledge of the Drow language went a lot further than that, at least in written form, although he would be confident of his pronunciation only of the phrases that occurred in the games.

Cierre nodded. "That is more than most. Tell me, Special Agent, what happen to Mike? Other agents ask me about him before the _rivvil jalil_ attack me and the _jaluk_ threaten me with SIG-228."

"What do you mean, attack you? You attacked Ziva," Tim said. He made a mental note that Cierre was obviously extremely familiar with firearms.

"That is false," Cierre said. "They lie. I defend myself only. But tell me of Mike. I wait for him for more than hour in hotel… front part, by door… and he not come."

"You waited for him? Huh? If he was supposed to meet you at your hotel why didn't you just go there together?"

"Air Force Instruction 36 dash 2909 dash 3 dot 2, professional and unprofessional relationships for civilian employees," Cierre said. "Even though he is away from unit now we thought it best to be circumcise about our rendezvous. We have new _Jabbuk_ and I know not what he think of such things." She fixed him with a steely gaze and a tone of command entered her voice. "Now tell me what happen to Mike. I grow fearful."

Tim hesitated. He was somewhat thrown by her use of 'circumcise' – probably she meant 'circumspect', he guessed – and it took him a moment to readjust to her changed tone. It was standard procedure not to tell a suspect more than the minimum necessary about a case. However it would be obvious, as soon as he started asking probing questions, that Sherman had been killed. As she would know already, of course, if she was the one who had killed him.

"He was murdered in the alley out back of the club," Tim revealed.

Cierre's face contorted in a snarl. She rose to her feet, her shoulders writhed, and the handcuffs came apart. A section of one cuff shot off across the room and clattered on the floor. "_Uk zhahus vith'ez elggus?_" she growled. "_Usstan orn glit'r doeb l'uitfly d'l'uss vel'uss elggen ukta!_" Tim recoiled as she snapped the handcuffs, expecting that she would launch herself at him, but relaxed when she made no offensive moves.

Cierre stood motionless for a moment, took a deep breath, and then sat down again. She rested her hands on the table and looked Tim in the eye. "I feared that something had happened to him but I think accident," she said. "Ask your questions, Special Agent, that you might the sooner catch the _iblith_ who slew my friend."

In the observation gallery Gibbs had drawn his gun when he saw Cierre break free from her cuffs. He holstered it again and frowned. "Now that wasn't what I was expecting," he said. "Just how strong is that woman? And how come she didn't mangle her wrists?"

"Ah, Gibbs," Ziva said, "I think that she did." A red stain was spreading across the left-hand cuff of Cierre's white sweat-shirt.

"Maybe we'd better get her medical attention, Boss," Tony suggested.

"Not yet," Gibbs said. "I think McGee's getting somewhere and she's not complaining. Let's leave him to it for the moment." He turned to Ziva. "She says you attacked her."

Ziva lowered her eyes. "I did make the first move, Gibbs," she admitted. "I saw the knife and went to disarm her. She had not yet taken any offensive action."

"I guess you couldn't afford to take any chances," Gibbs said, "but there might have been a better way to handle it. Think about it."

"Gibbs," Abby said, "what she said, when she broke the cuffs, it was in Drow. Surely she'd have spoken in her native language, French or whatever they speak in the Congo, if she was really angry or upset. Not in an invented language that she can't have learned until she came to the States."

"Good point, Abbs," Gibbs said. "Weren't you supposed to be getting me stills of the other woman?"

"Oh, can I stay, please, Gibbs, please?" Abby begged.

Gibbs pursed his lips. "I suppose you did have something to contribute there," he conceded. "Okay, you can stay, but the second McGee finishes you get straight back to your lab."

Abby bounced up and down and clapped her hands together. "Thanks, Gibbs," she said. "I'll get on it the second Tim's finished, I promise." She went back to watching the interrogation as McGee resumed his questioning.

"So, you say you didn't kill Michael Sherman?" Tim said.

Cierre opened her eyes very wide. "Why would I kill Mike?" she said. "I was angry when he not… did not… come to hotel, but I would only have punched him. If he not want to fuck me, that is okay. I only was annoyed because I waited for hour… an hour."

"And you didn't have an argument in the bar?"

"If we had argumented then I would not have wanted to fuck him," Cierre said. She looked down at her wrists. "_Vith'ol!_" she snapped out. "I have blood on new sweatshirt." She raised her left hand in front of her face and examined her watch. "Good, it is not scratched," she said. "I did not think before I act."

"I'll get someone to see to your wrist," Tim said. "It looks in a bad way."

Cierre shrugged. "The anger swells in my guts and I won't feel these slices and cuts," she said, rhythmically, almost as if she was chanting. "I will heal. The sweatshirt will not. How do I get the blood out? At base I just put in laundry."

"Do you often get blood on your clothes at the… base?" Tim asked.

"Yes," Cierre said, "but on BDUs. Not my own clothes."

"Your documents say you're a translator," Tim pointed out. "How come you get blood on your clothes?"

"Goa- Terrorists not care what job I do, try to kill me anyway," Cierre said.

Tim made a mental note that Cierre had started to say something that wasn't 'terrorists'. He let it slide for the moment. "So, Michael Sherman was alive when you last saw him," he said, "and you were expecting him to join you at your hotel."

"That is right," Cierre said. "I change out of leather clothes, put on clothes more easy to take off, and go down to wait for him. I call him when he not come, wait more then call again, then give up and go to bed."

Tim bit on his lower lip. Her account would explain the two missed calls on Sherman's phone. Confirming that the calls had come from Cierre's phone would be simple. The hotel night staff should be able to confirm Cierre's account, too, if she really had been hanging around the lobby for an hour. It wasn't an alibi but it was behavior consistent with her story. And she wasn't behaving like a murderer being interrogated; if she'd been faking her flare of anger when he revealed that Sherman had been murdered then she was worthy of an Oscar – or at least a Golden Globe. He switched to another line of questioning.

"Why did you open the door to the other agents with a knife in your hand?" he asked.

"Because I could not bring my gun on the…" she made a swooping motion with her right hand, "airplane. Only knife, checked in suitcase in baggage hold."

"Uh, that's not what I meant," Tim said. "Why did you have a weapon in your hand?"

"In case they not really were police," Cierre said. She looked at her wrist again. "I think blood stop now." She pulled her sweat-shirt over her head; it seemed to stick for a moment, and she muttered something that was too muffled for Tim to make out, and then she was free and disengaging her left arm from the sleeve. She struggled with the right sleeve, which caught on the remains of the handcuffs, and Tim moved forward to assist her.

"I might as well take that off," he said, producing a handcuff key. "It's not exactly serving any useful purpose now."

"_Bel'la dos_," Cierre said. Tim removed the cuff and Cierre slipped her arm out of the sweat-shirt. Under it she was wearing a white tee-shirt printed with the silhouette of a snow-boarder and the legend 'BORN TO SNOWBOARD, FORCED TO WORK'.

With the sweat-shirt gone Tim was able to take a good look at Cierre's musculature. He'd expected her to display massively bulging arm-muscles but in fact Cierre's arms were relatively slim. Tautly muscled, definitely those of an athlete, but not excessively so; more Maria Sharapova than Venus or Serena Williams.

Which raised the question of how the Hell she'd managed to rip the tempered steel handcuffs apart? Beating Ziva in a fight might have been achieved with superior skill – although that would have been remarkable in itself, considering the Mossad-trained agent's mastery of Krav Maga – but the handcuffs had been a matter of sheer brute strength.

Tim's attention was so concentrated on Cierre's arms that it was several seconds before he noticed something that Tony, watching from the observation gallery, had spotted right away. Or some things, rather; two raised circles, easily visible through the tee-shirt's tight material, that made it quite obvious that Cierre wasn't wearing a bra. Of course once Tim did notice his gaze focused on them quite outside of his conscious control.

Tim swallowed hard, his cheeks went pink, and he managed to avert his eyes. "Are you sure you don't need medical attention?" he asked.

"No need, blood has stopped," Cierre said. "See? But I would like wash… to wash… my hands."

"I'll get someone to escort you to a washroom," Tim said. "Uh, if it was Ziva, that's the agent you fought in your hotel room, would you have a problem with that?"

Cierre shook her head. "I won," she said. "Why I have problem? If she want second round she can have one, if she okay then is okay with me. She was very good. Move she use on my wrist I did not know."

"Well, Ziva?" Gibbs asked, turning away from the observation window. "Are you going to have a problem?"

"I will do my job and I will not start anything," Ziva assured him. "Gibbs, have you noticed her accent? If that is from the Democratic Republic of Congo then I am a monkey's aunt."

"That's 'monkey's uncle', Ziva," DiNozzo corrected her.

"I am a girl, Tony, I could not be an uncle," Ziva said.

"That's kind of the point," Tony said.

Gibbs raised his hand, as if he was going to smack Tony across the back of the head, but didn't complete the motion. "Sure I've noticed the accent," he said. "I talked to enough people from Burundi a month ago to pick up what the accent sounds like, and Burundi has a border with the DRC. Ms LuaLua sounds more like a… Russian."

"That was my thought, Gibbs," Ziva confirmed.

"She sounds like Grey DeLisle doing Viconia to me," Abby put in, "only with worse grammar."

Gibbs had no idea what Abby was talking about and so ignored her comment. "McGee's doing a pretty good job so far," he said. "He's managed to get her to open up quite a bit."

Tony sniggered. This time Gibbs did deliver the head-slap.

"What are you, five, DiNozzo?" he grumbled. "Ziva, get out there and escort LuaLua to the bathroom."

Ziva nodded and left the room.

"Abbs, I want to know a lot more about LuaLua," Gibbs went on. "When she came to the States, where she was before that, anything about her life in Colorado that doesn't involved pushing at the door marked 'Project Blue Book: Classified'. I'd give the job to McGee but I want him to keep doing what he's doing."

Abby pouted but acquiesced. "Sure thing, Gibbs, I can do that," she said.

"And while she's out of the room pick up a sample of her blood," Gibbs said. "She's not acting like she's on Angel Dust, or something like that, but there has to be some explanation for how she could snap the cuffs and just ignore it when they cut into her. Test it for everything you can think of – and then test it some more."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Ah, Jethro," said Dr Mallard. "I… am afraid I have some… misgivings."

"Misgivings? About what, Ducky?" Gibbs paused with his coffee cup half-way to his mouth. "I was expecting you to give me confirmation that we had the murder weapon. Are you saying that we don't?"

"You anticipate me," Ducky said. "Indeed I cannot, in all conscience, say that it was the knife used in the killing."

"It fits the description you gave," Gibbs said. "Doesn't it?"

"Actually, no," Ducky said. He removed his glasses and waved them in the air, in the manner of an orchestra conductor's baton, as he spoke. "It's… too large. It is perfectly possible for a knife to make a wound larger than the dimensions of the blade, especially when the wound is in an area of soft tissue, and I factored that into my original estimate. Eight inches, I said, and indeed a blade smaller than that could have been responsible for the wound if sufficient force was used. But for a nine-inch knife to inflict the injury to Gunnery Sergeant Sherman would be… highly unlikely. Not absolutely impossible but extremely improbable." He donned his glasses once more and peered over the rims at Gibbs.

"If it was used by the young lady in custody upstairs," Ducky continued, "who performed the extraordinary feat of strength of breaking out of a pair of handcuffs, then she must have pulled her blow at the last moment. And, as there are distinct marks on the victim's skin made by the cross-guard of the knife, that scenario does not seem to fit the observed facts."

"So either she had a second knife, and dumped it somewhere," Gibbs said, "or there's a second super-strong Xena clone on the loose. I know which one is the more probable." He sipped at his coffee and moved forward to look down upon the corpse of the late Gunnery Sergeant Michael Sherman.

"I will not disagree with you there, Jethro," said Ducky. "This case is proving to be rather more complex and interesting than it first appeared."

"Enough to make up for you missing out on your golf this weekend?"

"Really, Jethro, have you forgotten that it is December? The weather might be quite mild at the moment but snow could fall at any time. It's hardly a suitable time of year for golf."

Gibbs swapped his coffee cup over to his left hand and, with his right, slapped the back of his own head. "I wasn't thinking. The Christmas decorations in the department stores should have been a tip-off."

"Quite so, although these days it seems almost as if they start appearing as soon as Easter eggs disappear from the shelves," Ducky said.

"And the Easter Bunny hitches a ride on Santa's sleigh," Gibbs agreed. "Everyone's in too big a hurry these days. Not that I can criticise, seeing as how I'd like this case solved yesterday. Have you learned anything else from Sherman's body?"

"Nothing relevant, Jethro," Ducky said. "He was in excellent health. There are a few scars from old wounds, including a roughly circular patch of extensive scarring which I would attribute to a burn, but nothing unusual for a Marine who has been on active service. His blood alcohol level would have been slightly over the legal limit for driving but his abilities would not have been significantly impaired. Everything is consistent with him having dined at perhaps nine p.m. or a little later, consuming a few beers over the course of the evening, and dying at approximately 2 a.m. exactly as I estimated at the scene of the crime."

"And confirmed by the security camera footage and the bar staff's testimony," Gibbs said. "It has to be LuaLua. I don't see how it could be anyone else." He shook his head. "And yet… my gut says there's more to it. She's not like any killer I've ever met. Scratch that – she's not like any _person_ I've ever met. Maybe you could help me get a handle on her."

"Of course, Jethro, I would be more than willing to contribute anything I can," Ducky said. "I take it you would like me to observe the next interrogation session?"

Gibbs nodded. "We're taking a break at the moment, and then I'll let McGee have another run at her, and then I'll take over. You watch and see what you make of her."

"Certainly," Ducky said. "This should be fascinating. I've written my report up already and I'm quite finished here apart from the clearing up. Mr Palmer, can I leave that to you?"

"Of course, Dr Mallard," Ducky's young assistant said at once. "Would it be alright if I came and watched the interrogations, too, once I've finished?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Hell, why not?" he said. "Maybe I should sell tickets."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"So, what have you got for me, Abbs?" Gibbs asked. His right hand was out of sight behind his back.

"Quite a bit," Abby replied, "but not much of it good. What have you got for me? A Caf-Pow?" She craned her neck, and leaned over, trying to see behind Gibbs.

"Maybe," Gibbs said. "It all depends on whether or not you've worked any miracles."

Abby's face fell. "No miracles yet, Gibbs, they take time. And I have to confess a failure. The blood on the knife doesn't match with Sherman. He's Type O negative and what's on the knife is Type B. Positive and negative, so from two different people, but not him. And it's pretty old blood, too; it had decomposed quite a bit. Several months old, at a guess."

"Type B?" Ducky, who had followed Gibbs into the lab, remarked. "Rather uncommon in people of European ancestry and far more prevalent in Central Asia and Northern India. Afghanistan, perhaps?"

Gibbs nodded. "That would fit with her being in some super-secret Black Ops outfit," he said. "Don't sweat it, Abbs, Ducky has just told me that he doesn't think that knife was the murder weapon after all."

"Now you tell me," Abby said. "Next, to continue my humiliating tale of miserable failure, the Drow's blood. I can't type it."

"My word!" Ducky exclaimed. "That is remarkable. I cannot imagine that you could fail to follow the proper procedures, Abigail, as you are, after all, an accomplished… typist. There must be something quite extraordinary about her blood."

"Like maybe that it's full of steroids, or EPO, or PCP?" Gibbs suggested.

"I haven't found anything like that so far, Gibbs," Abby admitted. "I'll keep on looking. And I've got more bad news. I tested the leather jacket she was wearing last night and there are no traces of blood on it at all. Not even a speck."

"No murder weapon, no blood traces, our physical evidence is shrinking down to the marks on Ziva's arm," Gibbs groaned. "We're going to have to keep Ziva in cold storage in the autopsy room so that they don't fade. What about LuaLua's phone?"

"She did make the missed calls to Sherman's phone," Abby said, "just like she said she did. And she'd called him twice earlier, Thursday evening and Friday at eighteen thirty. Other than that… she's got General O'Neill on speed-dial, plus a Lieutenant-Colonel Carter USAF, two numbers at the Cheyenne Mountain base, three private numbers, and a Domino's Pizza in Colorado Springs."

"Text messages?"

"Nothing of interest," Abby reported. "The only ones she ever sends just say '0K', and the incoming ones are all innocuous. Things like 'M0v1e + p122a n1te my p1ace 1900'. Mainly from the Lieutenant-Colonel's phone. They might be super-secret code messages but they might just be invitations to watch movies and eat pizza."

Gibbs brought his hand out from behind his back. "It's not what I was hoping for," he said, "but at least you've tried. Here. Maybe a Caf-Pow will give you the boost you need to get some positive results."

"Gee, thanks, Gibbs," Abby said, seizing the large container of caffeine-loaded energy drink and immediately sucking hard on the straw. She broke into a beaming smile. "I feel real bad about letting you down, but it's not all bad news. I have managed to find out a little about her background, at least. It wasn't easy, because 'cierre' means 'shutting' in Spanish so there were thousands of false hits, and when I searched for 'LuaLua' almost all of the hits were for two brothers who play pro soccer, but I got somewhere in the end. She's won three regional snowboarding events in Colorado. There was an article about her in Colorado Snowboarding magazine, just a couple of paragraphs, but it says she came to the States in '04, straight from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and fell in love with snowboarding right away. She won't turn pro because she's too committed to her work for the US Air Force."

"Which is?"

"I'm still drawing a blank on that," Abby said. "You told me not to try pushing at Project Blue Book and everything I've found just leads to that."

"I'll have to start pushing eventually," Gibbs said, "but I have a feeling that, as soon as I do, there'll be spook types swarming all over us, waving folders marked 'Classified', and trying to take away my prisoner. I want to put that off as long as possible. Anything else?"

"This," Abby said. She brought a blurred picture, a drawing of a black-skinned and white-haired woman waving a sword and an axe, up onto her monitor. "Cierre of Luruar, Drow Ranger. A very obscure character from Dungeons and Dragons. She only appears in one of the books, and there isn't much detail about her, but what there is… she's five foot nine and a worshipper of the goddess of snow and ice. Cierre of Luruar… Cierre LuaLua. If that's coincidence you can bite me."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Boss," Tony DiNozzo greeted Gibbs, as the Supervisory Special Agent entered the observation gallery. "I've got something."

"If this is more news about evidence evaporating I'll explode," Gibbs said. Behind him Dr Mallard and Jimmy Palmer came in and closed the door.

"No, it's progress," Tony said. "I have a name and description for the woman who left the bar just before Sherman. The waitresses say they heard some of the guys in the bar calling her 'Cheyenne'."

"Cheyenne? That was a man's name, in my day," Dr Mallard reminisced. "I remember an old TV western, 'Cheyenne', starring Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie. Rather good, for its time, as I recall."

Tony took no notice of Ducky's rambling. "And they also heard her called 'Miss Doyle'," he went on.

"Good lord, that's a remarkable coincidence," said Ducky. "Bodie and Doyle. The two main characters of 'The Professionals', a British TV show about an organisation which bore some resemblance to ours, except that they rarely bothered about details like Chain of Evidence and engaged in a disproportionate number of car chases."

"You think it's a false name, Ducky?" Gibbs asked.

"Oh, no, that's hardly likely," Ducky said. "Merely a coincidence, I'm sure. To construct a false name based on those tenuous links would imply someone of… well, perhaps a little younger than me, but certainly of mature years, and probably British. She wasn't, was she?"

"Early twenties, they say, and American," Tony said. "Very tall – six feet or near enough – and looked like a super-model. She had most of the single men in the place hanging around her like bees around a honey-pot."

"And she blew them all off and left the bar a couple of minutes after LuaLua?" Gibbs queried.

"That's right, Boss," Tony confirmed. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That it's as suspicious as hell? Damn right," said Gibbs. "If it wasn't for the bruises on Ziva's arm, and the snapping the handcuffs trick, I'd say that LuaLua had dropped out of the prime suspect slot. But there couldn't be two women that strong. Could there?"

"Not unless we've somehow blundered into a 'Terminator' movie," Tony said.

Gibbs looked down into the interrogation room, where Cierre LuaLua was munching her way through a pizza obtained for her by McGee, and shook his head. "As I recall it Terminators can't eat," he said, "and I must be going crazy even to start going along with your whacky ideas. But she's certainly strange."

"I spoke to her in French when I took her to the washroom," Ziva said, "and she speaks it a little better than she speaks English – but not by much. And her accent in French is just as strange."

"That's about what I expected," said Gibbs. "I think it's time I took a run at her. McGee's done a good job but I'll push harder." He turned to Tony and Ziva. "New assignment for you two," he said. "Find this 'Cheyenne Doyle'. Go back to the bar, speak to them face to face, and get every detail about her. None of the security camera shots show her face worth a damn. And while you're there you can double-check the dumpster for a second knife. Including the gap between it and the wall. And check out any other trash bins in the area, too."

"This is what I get for working on the Sabbath," Ziva muttered under her breath.

"Then get onto the taxis and hotels, same as you did for LuaLua," Gibbs continued. "Track her down. She's either our most important witness or else she's the killer. And, right now, I'd say it's even money as to which one."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Gibbs settled himself down in the chair opposite Cierre. "Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs," he introduced himself.

"Cierre LuaLua at your service," Cierre replied, "as you of course know."

"Or Cierre of Luruar?"

Cierre smiled. "Real name is Dorcas LuaLua," she said, "but when I came to America they tell me that 'Dork' mean something bad. Friend I met telled – told – me about Cierre of Luruar, I change my name. Like Shania Twain, real name Eileen Edwards. Or Elton John."

"Reginald Dwight. I know." Gibbs shook his head slightly. It was a perfectly sensible explanation. Something about it still didn't seem right but he couldn't see any way it could be connected to the case. "Who is this friend?"

"Rodney," Cierre said. "I think I not tell you his other name. He work for… classified project, same like me. Might be okay to tell you name but I am not sure so better I not… do not."

"You've modelled your whole appearance on a character from a fantasy role-playing game just because this friend told you that your names were similar?" Gibbs stared into her eyes. "Don't you think that's a little… weird?"

Cierre shrugged. "Not have good life, before I come to America," she said. "I make fresh start. Try to forget old home. Playing at being Drow is good way to do that."

"And learning a made-up language when your English isn't exactly perfect? Don't you think that was a waste of time?"

Cierre shrugged again. "My time," she said. "I enjoy it. And it help me learn to use Internet."

Gibbs decided not to bother following that line of questioning any further. "What exactly do you do in this classified project?"

"I am not allowed to tell," Cierre said. "That is what 'classified' means. I get into big trouble if I tell you."

"You're already in trouble," Gibbs said.

"Good reason not to get in more trouble," Cierre said. "You waste your time. I will not tell you anything about what I do for Air Force."

"I can respect that," said Gibbs, "but I have a job to do. You say you didn't kill Gunnery Sergeant Sherman. I have to find out who did. He worked for the same project as you do. There might be a connection."

Cierre shrugged again. "Might. Still cannot tell you unless General say is okay."

"Don't you want the killer to be caught?"

Cierre's lips curled back in a snarl. "Want to find killer and make die slow. Still not tell you about job."

"So tell me about other things," said Gibbs. "Ever hear the name 'Cheyenne'? Or 'Doyle'?"

"Of course I hear Cheyenne," Cierre answered. "I work at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Also Cheyenne is state capital of Wyoming, and is name of Native American tribe. Doyle… I do not know."

"Did you recognize anyone in the bar last night?" Gibbs asked.

"If I had, we would go to other bar," Cierre said. "I not want us to be seen together."

"Why did you leave separately?"

"So if anyone asks 'did you take him back to your hotel?' I could say 'no' and not be telling lie," Cierre said. "I do not like telling lies. I do not like not being truth… truthful."

"So why do all this sneaking around setting up a secret date?"

"Maybe it okay to fuck Mike, when he away training and not in unit," Cierre said, "but I was not sure and if I ask, and they say no, then get in much more trouble if we do it. So I think best we hide what we do." She sighed. "Rules are hard. I am not allowed to fuck men from base but with other men I have to keep secrets, makes it hard to date, so I do not bother. And I have not get any since my boyfriend was killed last year."

"Your boyfriend was killed?" Gibbs sat up straight. There could be a connection. "How?"

"On active service," Cierre said. "He was… in allied force, not USA. I cannot say more."

"Don't tell me, it's classified," said Gibbs.

Cierre's forehead creased. "Why should I not tell you it is classified when it is classified?"

"Forget it," Gibbs said. He raised a hand and scratched his head. The interrogation was turning out to be hard work but not because Cierre was being obstructive. She was _seriously_ strange, yes, but gave the impression that she was cooperating to the best of her ability within the limitations of her classified orders. His original intention had been to push hard but, once they'd started talking, he'd changed his mind. She seemed to respond quite well to straight-forward questioning but he had a feeling that any attempt to intimidate her would backfire. And he was becoming steadily less convinced that she was the killer.

"How come you're so strong?" he asked, switching tracks again.

"I work out," Cierre said.

Gibbs raised his eyes heavenwards. If she'd been a man, six feet six and two hundred and eighty pounds, he might have been prepared to accept that explanation. Considering that Cierre carried no more muscle than a pro tennis player – and less than some – it just wasn't possible. Could 'Project Blue Book' be some secret Air Force – or, more likely, CIA – plan to produce operatives with super-human strength by some dubious means? It was possible but did a Congolese immigrant – and an extremely eccentric one, at that – fit the profile of the likely subject of such an operation? Maybe, in line with Ducky's original suggestion that they were looking for Tarzan, she'd been brought up in the jungle by apes. And he must be going crazy to entertain such an idea even for a moment.

"Why you think that it was me who kill Mike?" Cierre asked.

Gibbs debated with himself before answering. Should he reveal the details? If she was the killer she'd be put on her guard. If she wasn't… maybe it would prompt her to explain some of the puzzling aspects of the case and about herself. And, with her handcuff escape on film, she could hardly deny her exceptional strength later.

"Apart from you being on the scene, you mean?" he said. "The killer was extremely strong and, from the marks left on Gunnery Sergeant Sherman's arm, probably a woman or a man with slim hands. You fit the profile."

Cierre tensed. "As strong as me, you think? How was he killed?"

Again Gibbs thought before deciding to answer. "He was stabbed in the abdomen, angling up to reach the heart," he said, indicating the site by putting fingers to his own body.

"Was there any wound in neck? Any marks of teeth?"

Gibbs frowned and shook his head. "No. If you're thinking vampires, they aren't real. You've been playing too many fantasy games."

"_Ashrak_," Cierre hissed. "Special Agent Gibbs, I must make phone call."

"Okay," Gibbs agreed.

"I do not know number," Cierre said. "It is in my phone."

"I'll get it for you," Gibbs said. Maybe this would produce a lead; on the other hand it might bring the Air Force brass, or the spook brigade, running to the Navy Yard demanding Cierre's release. However, if it did, he could retaliate by demanding answers. As long as Abby hadn't taken Cierre's phone apart in the course of trying to retrieve her call records…

She hadn't. Gibbs returned with the phone and handed it over. Cierre began dialling at once, without asking for privacy, and so Gibbs sat down and listened. He might not be able to hear much of the other side of the call, of course, but maybe Abby could isolate and amplify it from the recording that was being made.

"General O'Neill," a gruff voice answered. Gibbs could, just about, make it out.

"General Jack, this is Cierre," Cierre said.

"Hey, Cierre," O'Neill said, his tone lightening. "Couldn't this have waited 'til Tuesday? I had a bite."

"This is urgent, General Jack," Cierre said. "Foothold. I say again, Foothold."

**Glossary of Drow phrases**

_rivvil_ = human

_jaluk_ = male

_vith'os_ = fuck you

_rivvil jalil_ = human woman

_iblith_ = offal, excrement

_Jabbuk_ = male commander

_Vith'ol!_ = fuck it!

_Uk zhahus vith'ez elggus?_ = He was fucking murdered?

_Usstan orn glit'r doeb l'uitfly d'l'uss vel'uss elggen ukta_ = I will rip out the spine of the one who killed him

_Bel'la dos_ = thank you


	3. Three: Major Disaster

**Three: Major Disaster**

"So what was all that about?" Gibbs growled. After the opening exchange the voice at the other end of the line had said something about a 'secret decoder ring' and, from then on, Cierre had spoken in some language utterly incomprehensible to him. O'Neill's replies had been in English but too short and guarded to give much away.

"I am sorry, Special Agent, but I cannot speak it," Cierre said. "Classified. I think they let me tell you soon but I have to say nothing now."

"What's 'Foothold'? That's a code-word, if I ever heard one, and it doesn't sound like it stands for anything good," Gibbs pressed.

"Is very not good," Cierre confirmed, "but I cannot tell you more. I ask-ed premonition… no, that is wrong word…"

"Permission?" Gibbs suggested.

Cierre nodded. "Yes. _Bel'la dos_. I ask-ed permission to tell you. I think you are a good man. You remind me of General Jack but you are not as fun."

"Yeah, well, you're not exactly seeing me at my best," Gibbs said, "when I'm dealing with a murder case." No doubt DiNozzo, had he still been in the observation gallery, would have made some smart-alec remark about Gibbs having no life outside murder cases. Maybe it was even true.

Cierre reached out her hand toward his. Gibbs' natural impulse was to pull his hand back out of her reach but he restrained himself and allowed her to complete the gesture. Her hand grasped the back of his and, instead of clamping down with bone-crushing force, delivered a gentle squeeze.

"You are a good man and do important job," she said. "I will speak firm that I can tell you all the things you need to know. One thing I tell you now. Your agents look for person who kill Mike? Tell them she is more danger than me. If she put hand out of sight shoot her in head, double-tap, like Maxwell's silver hammer make sure that she is dead. Or else she will kill them."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Well, McGee, what was she saying?" Gibbs demanded.

"I, uh, have no idea," Tim admitted. "She wasn't speaking the Drow language. I didn't recognize a single word."

Gibbs clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "And I didn't recognize it either, which probably means we're stuck. Ziva speaks a couple of languages I don't, but I know what those sound like, and this wasn't any of them. It might be some tribal language from the DRC, maybe, but it didn't sound Bantu. Ten to one it's another of those made-up fantasy languages and if you don't know it I don't know who will. Except maybe for Abbs."

"It's not Klingon," McGee mused, "and not Quenya, or Sindarin. It didn't sound… snarly enough to be the Heroes' Tongue. It could be Verdurian, just possibly. I'll transcribe some of the words and see if they fit in with Verdurian phonology."

"You do that," Gibbs said. "Although how General O'Neill could understand some language cooked up by geeks beats the hell out of me." He shook his head. "I don't really see LuaLua as the killer any longer. Hell, I can't help liking her. But there's something hinky going on and she's the key. And now she's called the General we'll be getting visitors. I'll try to get Director Shephard to hold them off but I can't see her being able to buy us all that much time. You might as well start nosing around Project Blue Book before we get told to lay off. You can start off by looking for other Marines assigned to the project. I can't see Gunny Sherman being the only one." He frowned. "And check casualty records. If someone who's supposed to be a translator gets covered in blood on a regular basis it's a given that sometimes people in the project end up dead."

"On it, Boss," McGee said, and he left the room at a brisk walk.

Gibbs turned to Dr Mallard. "Well, Ducky, what did you make of her?" he asked.

Dr Mallard pursed his lips. "She presents a rather contradictory picture," he said. "I would read her as being an extremely direct and straight-forward type. That doesn't correspond with her apparent adoption of an, ah, Elvish persona. Perhaps it is something of a coping mechanism. One does hear so many stories of tragic events in the Democratic Republic of Congo."

"Do you see her as a killer?"

"Oh, certainly," Ducky said, "in the right circumstances, that is. I find it hard to believe, however, that she could spend a pleasant evening drinking and dining with Gunnery Sergeant Sherman only to conclude the assignation by brutally stabbing him to death in an alley. In my estimation, which admittedly is based on a limited period of observation, I would say that such an action would be completely out of character."

"That's pretty much my opinion," Gibbs said. "Unless he admitted to cheating on her and she lost her temper."

Ducky shook his head. "The killing was far too coolly executed for that," he said. "His ability to defend himself was neutralized, swiftly and efficiently, and then a single murderous blow was delivered. It was not a crime of passion."

"And it wasn't a robbery," Gibbs said, "which makes it a targeted hit." He narrowed his eyes. "Or… what if LuaLua was the target? The other girl, Doyle, followed her out of the bar. Sherman came out next, saw her following LuaLua, and challenged her. She acted immediately to eliminate him, before he could warn her target, but by the time she'd dumped the body LuaLua was in a taxi and on her way."

"It sounds like a logical scenario to me, Jethro," Ducky agreed, "but deduction is not my forte, as you know. I leave that to you."

"It's as good a working theory as any other," Gibbs said, "and it brings us right back to this mysterious Project Blue Book. Or some old enemy from the DRC, maybe, although I don't really see that as all that likely. It would help if LuaLua was more talkative."

"If it helps, Jethro, I get the impression that she respects you," Ducky said. "That could be important. I would say that she is a person who responds well to authority figures she can respect."

"What about those she doesn't respect?"

"She'll walk all over them," Ducky said, "or else dig in her heels and be mulishly uncooperative. I must stress, Jethro, that a relatively short session of observation as you carry out an interrogation is not a sufficient basis for a full psychological analysis. I could be completely in error. She could be a consummate actress who is indeed capable of cold-bloodedly stabbing a young man to death as the finale to a romantic evening."

"I don't buy that," Gibbs said, "and neither do you."

"True," Ducky said, "but I don't want you to place excessive weight on my opinion."

"The forensic evidence backs it up," Gibbs said, "so I'd say I'm placing just enough weight on it. LuaLua isn't the killer. And that means DiNozzo and Ziva aren't tracking down a witness but the prime suspect. I'd better give them a heads up before they find her."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Boss, we got a lucky break," DiNozzo reported. "A couple of guys who were in the bar last night came in for lunch today. One of them took a picture of his buddy and that chick Cheyenne Doyle shows up in the background. It's a mite small but her face shows up pretty clear."

"We were due a break," Gibbs said. "Get him to let you have his camera for a while… or, is it on one of those memory card doohickeys?"

"Better than that, Boss," DiNozzo said, "he used his phone. I'll get him to e-mail the pic to Abby; she can crop the guys out of it, clean up the pic of the girl, and send it back to me."

Gibbs took his phone from his ear and glared at it suspiciously. Yes, McGee had said something about it being able to take pictures but he hadn't paid any attention; NCIS issued the agents with perfectly good cameras so why use a phone? He had to confess that the rapid march of civilian technology, with gadgets that not long ago were the sole province of spooks and the military now on sale to just about anyone, sometimes caught him off balance. In fact, now he thought about it, some Japanese electronics firm was probably ready to release a version of MTAC for the home market any time soon. And the South Koreans would bring out a cheaper version a month later. He returned the phone to his ear.

"Yeah, do that," Gibbs said. "DiNozzo – if you find this woman, be careful. LuaLua just doesn't come over as a killer and that makes Doyle the prime suspect."

"Unless there was someone hiding in the dumpster to jump out and take Sherman by surprise," DiNozzo said, "but I don't buy that. My money's still on LuaLua but I'll watch out."

"LuaLua's probably in the clear," Gibbs said. "The forensics don't fit. But she knows something, that's for sure, and she said you should shoot Doyle in the head if she puts her hands out of sight even for a second. Of course you can't really do that or it'll turn out she's the fashion editor of the Washington Post and you'll spend the rest of your life in jail. But that might be better than getting a knife in the gut."

"Or not, considering that I'm a cop," DiNozzo said, "but I'll be careful anyway, Boss. Getting stabbed to death isn't on my list of fun things to do on a Saturday afternoon."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"I've got something, Boss," McGee reported. "A list of Marines seconded to Project Blue Book. One hundred and fifty-six, starting back in 1999, and still going on." He put up a list of names on the overhead plasma screen. "It must be a pretty dangerous assignment, Boss. Thirty-four of them are dead. Thirty-five if you count Sherman."

"Over twenty per cent fatalities. Deep Space Radar Telemetry my ass," Gibbs growled.

"It's the second time the Air Force has run an operation called Blue Book," McGee went on. "The first one ran from 1952 to 1969. It was an investigation into UFOs."

Gibbs groaned. If DiNozzo found out about that he'd be spouting endless quotes from movies about aliens all day. Or even claiming that LuaLua was an alien. "Concentrate on the current one," he said.

"It seems to be getting less dangerous," McGee commented. "Almost all the deaths are in the first five years. In the past three years there have only been five not counting Gunny Sherman."

"That's good to hear," Gibbs said, "but it's not getting us anywhere. There's no theater of operations listed. The deaths could have taken place anywhere. Iraq, Afghanistan, or some place in Africa where we're not supposed to be. The DRC is as good a guess as any."

"I've been doing searches for 'Cheyenne Doyle', too," McGee said. "So far I've found eighty-four people in the USA with that name but none of them seem to fit. Of course 'Cheyenne' could be a nickname, or a middle name; maybe she's really something dorky like, uh, Maude Cheyenne Doyle. If so I'm never going to find her."

"It's not so important now we've got a picture," Gibbs said. "If DiNozzo and Ziva don't track her down soon we'll put out a BOLO on her." He would have gone on to say more but heard footsteps behind him, turned, and saw Director Jenny Shephard descending the steps from her office.

"Congratulations, Gibbs," she said, as she approached. "You're going to get some answers. There's an Air Force Major on his way here to read you into the project. You, and McGee, DiNozzo, Dr Mallard, and Miss Sciuto too. And me, of course. But not Officer David."

Gibbs bristled. "Why not Ziva?"

"It's a multi-national project," Jenny said, "and Israel isn't part of it. It's not negotiable. Either you keep David out of it or none of you get read in."

"That's going to make things difficult," Gibbs said.

"I'm sure you'll be able to manage," Jenny said. "Of course, if it's too big a problem, I could take you off the case and bring in another team."

"That's not going to happen," Gibbs growled. "Anyway, LuaLua said she had asked permission to tell me about the project. Me, not some other team leader."

"I hardly think the prime suspect has any say in the decision," Jenny said.

"She's not the prime suspect any longer," Gibbs admitted. "I wouldn't say she's completely in the clear but the forensic evidence makes it pretty unlikely that she's the killer. The girl DiNozzo and Ziva are tracking down is the number one suspect as far as I'm concerned."

Jenny raised her eyebrows. "Oh? When did you change your mind?"

"Twenty minutes ago," Gibbs said, "when Ducky and Abby gave me their reports on LuaLua's knife and clothes."

"Is there a reason why we're still holding her?"

"We could charge her with assault on a Federal agent," Gibbs said, "although I'd skin Ziva alive if she went through with pressing charges, but it's an excuse to keep her for the time being. I don't want her running around interfering with the case. Anyway, she's not complaining. We've left her in the interview room, for now, with a coffee and a book to read."

"I haven't seen her yet," Jenny said. "I think I'll go take a look." She started to turn away but then turned back and stared at McGee. "You're blushing, McGee," she said. "What book is our witness reading?"

McGee shuffled his feet. "_Deep Six_," he confessed.

Jenny raised her eyes heavenward and clicked her tongue. "I should have guessed," she said, and set off again.

Gibbs didn't say anything. He just stared at McGee.

"It wasn't me, Boss, she asked for it specifically," McGee said, not meeting Gibbs' eyes. "And of course I had a copy. I guess she'd heard about it and knew it's about NCIS. Anyway, the only alternative would have been one of Abby's _Southern Vampire_ books."

"Okay, I'll let you off," Gibbs said. "So, Project Blue Book is multi-national but excludes the Israelis? Who the hell are the other nations? Saudi Arabia and Egypt?"

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"The International Oversight Authority for Project Blue Book is made up of the US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France," Major Davis related. "The five members of the UN Permanent Security Council. The project employs personnel from other countries but on an individual basis without their governments being in the know."

"We're sharing secrets with the _Russians_?" Gibbs shook his head. "I don't get it."

"They had vital resources we needed," Major Davis explained, "and they had their own version of the project but it wasn't going too well. Combining the two efforts works much better. The other countries… it's a long story and there's no point in going into it here. Anyway, it's the Russians who are dead against Israel having any involvement. They're absolutely vital and we can't go against them on this. So Officer David," he pronounced her name correctly, scoring a point in his favor with Gibbs, "is out. It's not negotiable. If you don't all agree to keep it from her then none of you will be read in. You'll have to get by without the information and we won't get the benefit of your expertise, which I am informed is formidable, in hunting for the killer of Gunnery Sergeant Sherman."

Gibbs looked hard at Major Davis, studying and assessing him, and then directed his gaze at the four Air Force Office of Special Investigations agents who accompanied him. Davis appeared to be a stereotypical officer; clean-cut, moderately tall, everything neat and tidy as per regulations. The AFOSI agents were, as he would have expected, a quartet with a mix of age and experience that resembled the make-up of his own team; although the gender balance was different, the Air Force team having two of each.

The AFOSI team leader, Special Agent Amos Burleigh, met Gibbs' eyes. "We're not trying to take your case off of you, Agent Gibbs," Burleigh said. He was an African-American of around five foot nine, with hair that was graying slightly and a mustache that curled down around the corners of his mouth, and his build matched his name; the archetypical 'burly detective'. "If you agree to the conditions for being read in then we'll stay out of it. General O'Neill's primary orders to us were to make sure that nothing happens to Cierre LuaLua. But if you won't go along with it then we'll have to investigate as well, duplicating your work and getting in your way, because otherwise you might miss something because you don't know the background."

"I've worked on cases before when I wasn't cleared to know all the details of the classified operation in question," Gibbs said. "I can do it again."

"Sure," Burleigh said, "but it'll be one hell of a lot easier if you do know the background and you don't have us under your feet."

"I can't work the case with the team down an agent," Gibbs said, "and if I pull someone in from another team it'll throw us off our game. That could get someone killed."

"So could not knowing the full situation," said Major Davis, "but you don't have to suspend Officer David from the team. She can work with you, she just won't get told the whole story. And she'll have to come to her own conclusions if she sees anything… weird."

Gibbs pursed his lips. He had a feeling that Davis wouldn't be all that upset if Ziva worked out things on her own, and passed her conclusions on to Mossad, as long as the US could deny to the Russians that they'd told her anything and be telling the truth. "Okay, it's a deal," he said. "I'll make sure the others understand."

"Then, if you gather them together, I'll brief them," Davis said.

"DiNozzo's following up a lead," Gibbs said, "with Ziva David. I can't pull him in and leave her out there by herself. And if I bring him in, and tell Ziva to take a break, she'll know something's up."

"He can be briefed later," Jenny Shephard said. "Let's not waste any more time. Everybody, my office, five minutes."

"And bring Cierre LuaLua too," Major Davis said. "She's an essential part of this."

"She's not really under suspicion any longer," Gibbs conceded, "so I guess there's no reason why not. Tell me, what's she done that she merits an AFOSI team as bodyguards?"

"Well, she's saved my life, for a start," Davis said, "but I'll leave the rest for the briefing." He gave one of those little 'I know something you don't' smiles. "I think you'll be… somewhat surprised."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Major _Koaj_!" Cierre exclaimed, greeting Major Davis with a big beaming smile. "I should not be surprise-ed. This time you are here because me, _siyo_?"

"That's right," Davis said. "You seem to have a gift for finding trouble."

"And one more time I bring someone death," Cierre said, her smile vanishing. "I should have gone snowboarding."

"If the Ashrak was already in Washington it's a good thing you did come here early," Davis said. "I doubt if the locals would have spotted her. She seems to be pretty good at blending in."

"It not worth a good man's life," Cierre said. She folded her arms and stood silent.

Davis turned to the gathering as a whole. "Does everyone understand the conditions of this briefing? None of what I say here is to be divulged to anyone outside this room except for Agent DiNozzo, and to him only if he agrees to the same conditions."

"I don't like keeping a secret from Ziva," Abby said, "but if that's how it has to be then I'll agree." She directed a cold stare at Cierre, who ignored her.

"I regard Ziva as completely trustworthy," Ducky said, "but I can see that having to keep a secret from her own government would put her in an impossible position. I will agree to your terms. I must confess to be somewhat agog to find out what all the mystery is about."

Davis turned to McGee and raised an eyebrow.

"_Olath Koaj_ is 'the Dark Disaster'," McGee muttered, "so 'Major _Koaj_ is… Major Disaster?"

"Ah," said Davis. "I wondered what her name for me meant. Yes, I gather that they call me Major 'Disaster' Davis at the SGC."

"The 'SGC'?" said Gibbs.

"Not until everyone's agreed and signed," Davis said.

"Sure, I'll sign," McGee assented.

"If you'd all take a seat," Davis prompted. There wasn't enough room for everyone around the table in the Director's Office; Gibbs, McGee, Abby, and Ducky sat at the table, Jenny sat at her own desk, the four AFOSI agents lounged against the desk that ran along the window, and Cierre squatted on her heels against a wall. Davis remained standing and handed out non-disclosure forms to the NCIS personnel.

"Doesn't _she_ have to sign one?" Abby asked, directing a hostile glare at Cierre.

Davis shook his head. "Hardly," he said. "Cierre is one of the most trusted operatives of Project Blue Book. In fact… no, not until you sign."

"I sorry I hurt your friend," Cierre told Abby. "I only mean to defend myself. I grip hard because she is very good fighter, not want to risk her getting hand free."

Abby made no reply, other than a loud sniff, but accepted the agreement sheet from Major Davis and read it through before signing.

Once everyone had signed Davis gathered up the forms and put them away in his briefcase. "This would work best with some sort of visual presentation," he said, "but that's not possible here." He handed the case to Special Agent Burleigh, fiddled with his tie for a moment, and then moved around the room until he found a position where everyone could see him without having to twist too far around in their chairs.

"It goes back to 1928," Davis began, "in Giza, Egypt. An archaeological dig found an artifact that wasn't made by humans…"

Gibbs listened, with mounting incredulity, as Davis related a tale of aliens and of USAF personnel traveling through 'wormholes' to other planets. Eventually, as Davis told how an Air Force team had discovered a world that closely resembled the fantasy world portrayed in the game 'Dungeons and Dragons', Gibbs snapped.

"This is bullshit!" he growled. "How do you expect us to believe this?"

"I don't blame you for being skeptical," Davis said. "I was, the first time I heard about it. But do you really think we'd waste your time, and interfere with a murder investigation, as some kind of practical joke? It's real. I've been on a starship, and on other planets, and the USAF has two starships operational right now and two more nearing completion – although one of those is earmarked for the Russians. And I've met aliens several times – and now you've met one too."

Everyone looked at Cierre. She nodded her head. "Is true," she said. "I am not from Democratic Republic of Congo. I am from Menzoberranzan, in Faerûn, on Toril."

"You're seriously deluded," Abby said. "Those places are fictional and the Drow don't really exist."

"Unlikely as it may seem, Abigail," Ducky said, "it would explain how you couldn't type her blood. Perhaps a physical examination would settle this."

Major Davis narrowed his eyes. "Any samples of Cierre's blood must be destroyed," he said. "That's part of our agreement with her. And absolutely no analysis of her DNA. There are people around who would want to experiment on her. That is not going to happen."

"You are being not nice," Cierre said, glowering at Abby. "I do not like being called liar."

"It would seem that the cover story, of you being someone who dresses up as a Drow, has been a little too successful," Major Davis said. "I suggest that Dr Mallard, as the medical expert, takes a good look at Cierre's ears. If that's alright with you, Cierre. I know you don't like being poked and prodded."

"Is okay for doctor to do it," Cierre said. She rose to her feet, went over to Dr Mallard, and knelt down. He, rather gingerly, pushed her hair back out of the way and then examined her ear.

"It's fake," Abby declared. "I can see the join from here."

"Oh my word!" Ducky exclaimed. "This really is quite remarkable. The ear is real. The apparent join is the fake. It's a thin strip of overlay attached to her skin and the ear continues all the way up. And it certainly feels completely natural. Would it be alright with you, young lady, if I took the temperature of the surface at the tip?"

"Yes, is okay," Cierre said. "I laugh that you call me 'young lady'. I am one hundred and forty-three years old."

"Which is why her DNA is off limits," said Major Davis. "There is no way her life-span could be transferred to humans but some people would try. And they'd happily dissect Cierre in the process, or try to, but she'd have something to say about that and a lot of people would end up dead. One possibility is that the woman who killed Gunnery Sergeant Sherman was working for someone like that. We don't think so, though, as the exceptional strength points in another direction. An Ashrak. That's a Goa'uld assassin; highly trained and motivated, far stronger than any human, and very hard to kill. If there's one loose in Washington… well, we've sent the President off to an undisclosed location. The President-elect, too."

"Why would someone who was after the President be following Miss… I guess her name isn't really LuaLua?" McGee asked.

"It is now," Cierre said. "Name change is done legal. I was borned Cierre of House Faen Tlabbar, then was Cierre of Luruar, people at SGC find name I would easy remember."

"I can't see the assassin's target really being the President," Davis said. "Cierre's made enough enemies off-world to be targeted in her own right. And on Tuesday the whole of SG-1 are going to be at the Pentagon for a meeting with General O'Neill. There will be a representative of… an allied power there, too. If the assassin got in there it would be bad for Earth."

"So cancel the meeting," Gibbs said.

"We might have to," Davis said, "or postpone it, or relocate it to inside Cheyenne Mountain, but either option will make us look bad. It was specifically requested that the representative gets to see our nation's capital. If we have to admit that we can't guarantee their safety… how does that look? We're beefing up security but there's a limit to what we can do without attracting far too much attention. The best solution would be for you to catch the assassin before anything else happens."

"Ya think?" Gibbs said.

Cierre laughed out loud. "I sorry," she said, as everyone stared at her, "but you say same thing General Jack say often."

"Cierre, it might be an idea for you to put on a translation amulet," Davis said, "so you can express yourself clearly. I've brought one with me." He opened his briefcase once more and took out a necklace, of gold wire with a large pink gemstone as a pendant, and handed it to Cierre. "You'll have to remember to take it off when Officer David returns otherwise she'll hear you speaking in Hebrew and start asking questions."

Cierre put the necklace around her neck. "Yeah, it would kind of give her a clue," she said. "Don't worry, I'll remember."

"Translation… amulet?" Gibbs stared at Cierre. Her accent remained unchanged but the rhythm of her voice, previously slightly hesitant as if she had had to keep pausing to think of the right word, had altered significantly.

"It's something we picked up on my planet," Cierre said. "Whatever you say I hear as if you'd said it in Ilythiiri, and I can speak in Ilythiiri and you hear it as English. It works for any language. It's going to make it a lot easier for me to read that 'Deep Six' book; I was struggling a little before, as I'm even less fluent at reading English than speaking it, but what I did manage to read seemed pretty damn good – Agent L. J. Tibbs."

Gibbs snorted. "I was tempted to shoot McGee when he wrote that thing," he said.

"Those amulets are among the most valuable things the project has brought back from space," Davis said. "Unfortunately we could only get hold of thirty-two of them and there won't be any more; the species that made them is extinct."

"And a good thing too," said Cierre. "The Sarrukh were probably even worse than the Goa'uld."

"If you still question the veracity of what I've told you about the project," Davis said, "here's a chance to test it. Say something to Cierre in any language you like and she'll understand. Even if one of you speaks Sumerian or Serbo-Croat."

Gibbs sought for something suitable to say in Russian. Before he had come up with anything Abby pre-empted him.

"Try this," she said, and moved her hands in the symbols of ASL. Gibbs had learned the sign language, although not as fluently as Abby who was the child of deaf parents, and he could understand her. "I don't believe you," Abby signed, and then finished with a sign Gibbs saw only very infrequently, "asshole."

Cierre laughed and her hands moved in gestures that, although they were not the same as ASL, Gibbs could still understand. "Tough shit, bitch," she signed. "It's true." Then Cierre spoke aloud. "My people use sign language too," she said. "The Silent Tongue."

"Abby, drop it," Gibbs said. "I get that you're pissed that Cierre hurt Ziva but you carrying a grudge isn't going to get us anywhere. She's apologized. Let it drop."

"I second that, Miss Sciuto," Jenny said. "Treat Ms LuaLua – I take it we're to keep on calling her by that name? – in a civil fashion."

At that moment Gibbs' phone rang. He grimaced, and for a moment was tempted to smash it, but it was almost certain to be DiNozzo checking in. Hopefully he and Ziva had made progress; maybe they'd even made an arrest. He pressed the 'answer' button and put the phone to his ear, growled "Yeah, Gibbs," and waited for the response.

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Are you experiencing déjà vu too?" Tony asked.

"We are going to a suspect's hotel room to ask her some questions," Ziva said. "This is something we do quite often. It is unusual only in that we rarely do it twice in the same day. The surroundings are quite different."

"Yeah, the St. Regis is quite a place," Tony said. "Whoever this 'Cheyenne Doyle' is she has to have money coming out of her ears."

"I am relieved to hear you say that," Ziva said. "For a moment I thought you were going to say that the money came out of… a different part of her body."

Tony almost choked. "Uh, right," he said, as the elevator doors opened and they stepped out onto the fifth floor. "This is the sort of place my Dad stays… but even he would have to think twice before he went for one of the suites. Especially alone. It's total overkill. What's the point in staying in a suite by yourself? Unless you're going to invite the Pussycat Dolls to come over."

"I do not think that this woman would invite the Pussycat Dolls to her room," Ziva said. "Perhaps Chip and Dale."

"They're cartoon chipmunks, Ziva," Tony pointed out. "I think you mean the Chippendales."

Ziva shrugged. "It does not matter. My point stands." The door of the suspect's suite came into sight and she slipped her right hand inside her windcheater and took hold of the butt of her gun. "If this turns into a fight again," she said, "I will assume from the start that she is stronger than me. I will fight her as if she were Vladimir Klitchko."

"Who?" Tony asked, as he too put a hand on his gun.

"The holder of two World Heavyweight titles," Ziva said. She took her hand off her gun and drew a point in the air before taking hold of her gun again. "They call him Doctor Steelhammer."

"It was better when there was just one Heavyweight champ," Tony said, "and Rocky will always be the champ to me."

"Hah!" said Ziva. "He is as fictional as the cartoon chipmunks."

"I might have meant Rocky Marciano," Tony said, "although, yeah, he's been dead nearly forty years. But he was one of the all-time greats. Or so my Dad always said." He fell silent as they reached the room door.

The two agents took up positions at the sides of the door, just as they had done before their confrontation with Cierre, and just as on that occasion they could hear music coming from inside the room. This time, however, it wasn't subtle soft rock; the unmistakable sound of Guns 'n Roses performing 'Welcome to the Jungle' penetrated the heavy paneled door and was plainly audible in the corridor.

Tony hammered on the door, to be sure that he was heard above the music, and yelled out "Federal Agents! We need to speak to you. Open up!"

"Just a moment, I'm not dressed," a sultry female voice called in reply. The music volume diminished slightly. Thirty seconds later the door opened wide to reveal a slim six-foot blonde wearing a voluminous St Regis Hotel bathrobe. "The FBI? This is so, like, totally exciting," she said. She opened her dark brown eyes very wide and batted her lashes at Tony. "I don't know what I could have done to interest Federal agents. I certainly haven't, like, kidnapped anyone lately or anything."

"We are NCIS, not FBI, Ms Doyle," Ziva said, holding up her ID wallet. "I am Officer David, this is Special Agent DiNozzo. You were at a bar in Dupont Circle last night, that is right? We need to ask about something you may have seen there. And it would be better if we came into the room and, perhaps, if you turned down the music."

"Hey, I totally love this song," the blonde said, pouting, but she turned and walked back into the suite. Tony and Ziva followed her through the suite's foyer and into a living room that was larger than those in most family homes. The décor was all in coordinated shades of light blue and dove grey, including the sofa and two armchairs, and a flat-screen TV that could have doubled as the flight deck of a Second World War era aircraft carrier stood against one wall. Most of the opposite wall was taken up by two floor-to-ceiling windows. The bedroom, in matching shades, could be seen through an open door. Cheyenne Doyle went to an iPod dock that stood on a desk, turned it down to about half the original volume, and then lay herself across the sofa in a posture that managed somehow to be an elegant sprawl.

Tony held back the appreciative whistle that tried to come from his lips. Part of it would have been directed at the room and part at the blonde; she was certainly extremely decorative. Ziva didn't share his appreciation. Something about the woman set her teeth on edge and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She kept her right hand on her gun.

"NCIS? Is that, like, Crime Scene Investigation?" Doyle asked.

"Naval Criminal Investigative Service," Tony explained. "We deal with crimes involving the Navy and the Marines."

"Oh? Hey, I saw a guy last night who had that kind of military haircut, you know, with the sides pretty much shaved and the top not all that much longer. Was he a Marine?"

"He was," Tony confirmed, "and he…"

Ziva cut him off. "You saw him? And you saw the woman who was with him?"

"Oh, yeah, the _Dhaerow_," Doyle said. "Cierre of the Silver Marches. She's pretty recognizable."

"Huh? You know her?" Tony's brow furrowed.

"Well, duh," Doyle said. She moved to sit upright. "I was shadowing her, and then she left by herself and he didn't follow, and I thought I might as well kill her while I had the opportunity. Only she wasn't hanging around waiting for him, like I thought she would, and she was in a taxi before I could catch her, and then the guy came out and noticed me cursing. And he saw the knife… so I used it on him."

Ziva brought her gun out from under her windcheater. "Are you… confessing?"

"We'd better read her her rights," DiNozzo said. He also began to draw his gun.

"That would be pointless," Doyle said, "seeing as how you're both going to be dead in the next thirty seconds." She exploded into motion, coming to her feet in a fraction of a second, and kicked the coffee table at Tony's legs hard enough to knock his legs from under him. Suddenly she had a whip in her right hand, from out of nowhere, and it shot out and wrapped around Ziva's wrist. Ziva pulled the trigger but her arm had been tugged aside and the bullet missed Doyle. It hit the window, shattering a central pane, and then Ziva lost her grip on the gun and it went flying across the room.

Tony managed to control his fall and landed on his backside. He brought up his gun and fired twice. A hole appeared in Doyle's bathrobe, high on her right breast, and the second shot hit her on the cheek. It didn't penetrate. The bullet, flattened out as if it had hit solid steel, fell to the floor leaving only a slight red mark on her skin. Then Doyle released the whip, grabbed Tony's arm, and heaved him to his feet. Her left hand dipped into the capacious pocket of the bathrobe and came out holding a dagger. He fired again, narrowly missing her head and putting another hole in the window, and then the woman thrust with the knife.

Ziva hurled herself at Doyle, slamming an elbow into her side, and kicking her behind the right knee with all the force she could muster. Doyle's leg buckled, she went down on one knee, and her death-thrust went awry. It didn't strike high enough to reach the heart; instead it pierced deep into Tony's belly and then ripped sideways. Tony cried out, dropped his gun, and sagged in Doyle's grip. She rose to her feet, ignoring another kick and an elbow strike from Ziva, and let Tony fall.

Doyle drove back with her elbow, forcing Ziva to dodge, and then spun around. She grabbed for Ziva's arm and drew back the knife for a thrust. Ziva caught Doyle's reaching arm, bent back her fingers, and forced the arm round and up. Ziva felt the strength opposing her, and realized that Doyle was at least as strong as Cierre and possibly stronger, but all the leverage was on Ziva's side and Doyle was unable to resist. Instead she flipped herself into the air, spun completely over, and landed on her feet with her fingers no longer bent back. At once Doyle thrust with the knife at Ziva's throat.

Ziva ducked under the strike, went all the way under Doyle's arm, and threw her. The instant Doyle hit the ground Ziva stamped on her throat. It was a killer blow but Doyle barely winced. Instead she lashed out with the knife again, slicing through Ziva's pants at the calf and drawing blood, and then brought her right arm around and swept Ziva's legs from under her. Ziva turned her fall into a rolling dive toward Tony's gun; Doyle rolled in the same direction, bringing the knife around and over, and Ziva only managed to avoid being stabbed in the back by hurling herself past the gun and away.

Doyle rose to her feet. The bathrobe had come undone, and was saturated with Tony's blood, and now it slipped down over her arms and caught on the knife. She spent a second ripping the garment off and casting it aside. Ziva took the opportunity to make a dive for her own gun; Doyle leapt after her, rammed into her with enormous force, and sent Ziva flying forward.

Ziva struck the window with an impact that shattered the remaining glass, already weakened by two bullet holes, and went sailing out into the air five floors above the ground.

"Oops!" Doyle exclaimed. "I didn't mean to do that. Oh, well, the shots would probably have raised an alarm anyway." She glanced at Tony, who was writhing on the ground clutching his belly, and then strode, stark naked, into the bathroom to rinse off the blood. From there she rushed into the bedroom, dressed in extreme haste, and then came back into the living room clad in tight beige leggings and a matching crocodile-skin jacket. She scooped up both the guns from the floor.

"SIG-228s," she noted. "I used to have one of these. I took it from a California cop just before I killed him." She tucked them away, extracted the spare mags from under Tony's jacket – taking pains to avoid getting blood on her clothes – and then picked up Ziva's fallen ID wallet and NCIS cap. "These might come in useful," she said, and then lashed a vicious kick into the side of Tony's head. His groans shut off and he went limp. Doyle shut off the iPod, disengaged it from the dock, and dropped it into a pocket. She took out a cellphone and dialed.

"Hey, it's me, Bodhi," she said into the phone, as she walked out of the room into the corridor. "I'm going to need a new ID. We'll have to burn this one – I think that's the right idiom, yeah? I've just killed two Federal agents."


	4. Four: Officer Down

**Four: Officer Down**

Ziva hung from the flagpole, twenty-five feet above the roof of the hotel's covered entrance, and tried to ignore the white-hot agony in her arms. It felt as if she had dislocated her right shoulder when she caught the pole and brought her death dive to a jarring halt. She couldn't have done, or surely she wouldn't still be hanging on, but it felt that way. The pain in her left forearm, where the bruises left by Cierre's fingers were now black and purple, was worse. And a shard of glass had gone all the way through her cheek and her mouth was filling with blood.

She hung on. If she let go now, from this height, she would survive but the likelihood was that she would suffer a broken leg or a similar disabling injury. And Tony lay bleeding to death in the hotel room above.

The pole had bent alarmingly when she caught it, then whipped upward again almost causing her to lose her grip, and it oscillated up and down for several seconds before settling in a stable state. Normally it projected outward from the hotel at a forty-five degree angle but now it was curving down under Ziva's weight. She released her hold with one hand, causing the flagpole to wobble up and down again, and grabbed at it nearer to the base. She came close to losing her grip but managed to catch the pole just in time. For a moment she swayed, her head swimming, and she felt the glass shard scrape across her gum. She composed herself and repeated the maneuver with her other hand. Then again, and again, working her way hand over hand along the pole. It became more stable as she neared the base and she speeded up. And then she made an over-hasty grab with her right hand, missed, and hung, swaying dangerously, from her left with safety only feet away. The pain in her bruised forearm was like fire and she felt her fingers slipping. She grabbed again, caught hold, and almost hurled herself the rest of the way.

Now she was facing a low wrought iron railing around a little balcony that was, presumably, used when the hotel changed the flags on the poles. She could climb over it onto the balcony, where off to her right was a floor-to-ceiling window that presumably served as a door, and re-enter the hotel that way. However she had no idea what lay behind the window; if it was a guestroom, and turned out to be occupied, the occupants would be thrown into a panic when a blood-spattered stranger burst in. She'd lost her identity wallet during the fight; with her Semitic coloring, and her non-American accent, she could well get shot as a terrorist before she could prove that she was a Federal Agent.

So, instead, she went down. She transferred her grip from the flagpole to the railing, took hold of the horizontal bar at the bottom, and lowered herself down toward a ledge that ran around the building at window level there. Her feet found purchase and she released her hold on the rails. She flattened herself against the wall and then went down on her knees. She grasped the ledge and let herself down toward the covered entry-way. When she was only a couple of feet above it she let go of the ledge and dropped, breaking her fall like a parachutist, and then stood up and pulled out the shard of glass from her cheek. No doubt she was causing additional damage, and it would have been better to wait until it could be extracted by a surgeon, but if she left it in she risked it being driven deeper into her face when she made the final drop to the ground. And if she encountered Cheyenne Doyle again, and they engaged in another fight with the shard still embedded in her… it could be fatal.

She swung over the edge of the porte-cochere just as a taxi turned into the drive-through. It was moving slowly enough that there was never any danger of it hitting her but the driver, startled by the sudden appearance of a figure in front of him, slammed on his brakes and came to an abrupt halt. Then Ziva dropped the rest of the way to the ground and rushed for the door.

The doorman started to bar her way and then recognized her from when she had first entered the hotel. Luckily she had showed him her ID on the way in. "Holy crap, what happened to you?" he asked.

"Call 911!" Ziva snapped. "Police and ambulance. My partner was stabbed."

"Jesus!" the doorman exclaimed, and he wheeled around and was through the door ahead of her, shouting to the receptionist, who at once began to dial.

Confusion and chaos began to spread. A guest, recoiling from the sight of Ziva's blood-smeared face, almost crashed into the huge Christmas tree that dominated the lobby. A member of staff protested volubly about Ziva dripping blood onto the floor but was firmly silenced by the doorman.

"Don't let anyone leave!" Ziva ordered. "Lock the place down!"

"But there's a big wedding party tonight!" wailed one of the reception staff. "It'll be ruined!" Ziva managed to hold herself back from punching the woman in the face.

Hotel security people were quick to appear on the scene. Ziva was desperate to get back up to Doyle's room but had to give explanations, as quickly and concisely as she could, first. Probably it took only a minute or two but it seemed like forever. She could already hear police sirens when, at last, she was able to ascend in the elevator with a couple of hotel security men accompanying her.

The door of Suite 504 stood open. It seemed certain that the deadly woman had gone but wolf-caution was ingrained into Ziva's very heart and she entered warily, wishing that she had her gun, ready for immediate action. The hotel security men followed, taking their cues from her, but they weren't trained for this sort of situation and it showed. But the suite was empty.

Except for Tony. He lay on his back, very still, on a carpet that had become a blood-soaked quagmire. For a heart-stopping moment Ziva thought he was dead then she detected a slight movement of his chest. He was still breathing. But for how long?

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"David says DiNozzo shot Doyle twice and she's pretty sure he hit her in the head with one of the shots," Gibbs said. "She was wearing nothing but a bathrobe, and that fell off during the fight, so there was no way she could have had body armor. Yet she just shrugged the hits off." He glared at Cierre and at Davis. "Something you forgot to tell us?"

"The Goa'uld have force screens that will stop bullets," Davis said, "but they work from a thing like a gauntlet of metal bands with a big glowing jewel in the center of the palm. It would have been pretty obvious." He shook his head. "I've never heard of aliens who can just ignore bullets."

"I have," Cierre said. "On my planet the mages can cast spells that will absorb bullet impacts. Jack had to shoot some of them multiple times before he could pierce the protections. And there are creatures that can only be harmed by magic weapons, or by silver, or by cold-forged iron. This woman might be one of them. That would explain her strength."

"How would someone from Toril get here without coming through the Stargate?" Davis wondered.

"There are ways to create portals other than Stargates," Cierre said. "The representative of the Bridesmaids is making her own way here, we have been informed, though we know not how it is being done. Perhaps Doyle is a servant of a rival deity or faction and came here through such a portal." Her eyes narrowed. "Do we know who the representative is yet?" she asked Davis. "If it is Sumia, for instance, she could heal Agent DiNozzo. Or do we have any powerful healing potions in Washington?"

"Most of them are reserved for the President," Davis said, "but we've kept back a couple. But the Emergency doctors at the hospital aren't going to let military personnel pour an unknown fluid down a critically injured patient's throat."

"Then find a way to make them accept it," Cierre said, her voice steely. "I will not let another good man die because of me. I carry the guilt for Kenadi, and now for Mike; there will be no more."

Davis nodded. "I'll see what I can do," he said.

"We'll have to bring in another team, Gibbs," Jenny Shephard declared. "You can't run the investigation with only McGee. I'll call Erica Barrett."

"There's already another team right here, ma'am," the AFOSI team leader pointed out. "I don't mind working under Agent Gibbs' direction. It'll save a whole lot of time and mean we don't have to read even more people into the program."

"Indeed it would," Jenny agreed, "but I thought you said that your primary duty was to watch over Ms LuaLua."

"Give me my knife back, and a gun," Cierre said, "and I will watch over myself."

Gibbs nodded. "It makes sense," he said. "Okay, then, let's get back to the bullpen. I want a BOLO out on Cheyenne Doyle. Armed and extremely dangerous."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Pete Blenkowski," Burleigh said, indicating the male agent on his team. "He was a pilot until he bent a thirty million dollar fighter plane. He's my hitter. Does Thai boxing and is good with a gun too."

Gibbs nodded acknowledgement as Blenkowski grinned at him. Gibbs assessed the handsome and well-groomed ex-pilot as being the AFOSI team's equivalent of DiNozzo, personality-wise, although the role he filled presumably was more like that of Ziva.

"Gail Dorsey. She was with Metro PD for ten years," Burleigh went on. Dorsey was African-American, probably in her mid-thirties, a tall and bony woman with an expression of severe competence. As a former Metro cop she would bring local knowledge and police procedural skills to the team.

"And last, our geek," Burleigh said. "Rachel Drummond." She was young, white, with raven-black hair and way too much eye make-up. "What she doesn't know about computers Bill Gates and Steve Jobs don't know either."

"She should get on well with McGee, then," Gibbs said. Something made him glance at Cierre and he noticed that the Drow girl was directing a glare at Drummond that probably could have melted lead. Drummond sensed it too, her eyes widened, and then she held up her left hand to reveal a diamond ring on the third finger. At once Cierre's expression softened. Oh. No, make that 'Uh oh.' It would seem that the rapport McGee had established with Cierre during the interrogation might have gone a little too far.

That was McGee's problem, however, and had no immediate bearing on anything to do with the case. "We seem to have all the slots covered," Gibbs said. "Let's get busy. David reckons Doyle made it out of the hotel before they locked it down. We might get lucky with the BOLO but I'm not going to rely on that. We need to track her down first and worry about how to fill her full of lead… or arrest her… later."

Burleigh must have recognized that the 'arrest her' option was an afterthought but he made no comment. "And to do that we'll need to either follow her trail or else work out where she's going and get ahead of her," he said. "Probie, find out how she paid for the room at the St Regis and look for anywhere else the card's been used. Especially new reservations at other hotels."

"Sure thing, Boss," Agent Drummond said.

"McGee, help her," Gibbs said. "Concentrate on the high-end places. The Hay-Adams, the Park Hyatt, the Four Seasons, and so on. She must have money to burn and she seems to like luxury."

"On it, Boss," McGee responded.

"She might play it the other way," Agent Dorsey suggested. "Go somewhere down-market to hide out."

"That would be the smart thing to do," Gibbs agreed, "or go mid-range and check into a family hotel to blend in with the tourists. But I get the feeling she'll stay high-end. What do you think, Cierre? You know the… aliens."

"The Goa'uld are arrogant and dismiss the capabilities of the 'lesser races'," Cierre said, "and they surround themselves with luxuries at all times. A Jaffa… no, a Jaffa would never be so… flamboyant. And if she is from my world she will not realize how organized your people are. I was somewhat lost for the whole of the first year I was here despite having good friends from Earth to guide me. I didn't understand credit cards, or even paper money, and the first time I saw a TV I couldn't look away and watched for eight hours straight. This is the first time I have been granted leave to travel unaccompanied outside of Colorado – and I fucked it up. I'm amazed that someone from Faerûn could even find her way around on Earth let alone act as an efficient killer. She should stick out like a… sore thumb, if I have the idiom right."

"So you think the… Goa Uld… is more likely?"

Cierre shrugged. "I don't know. The invulnerability does point to someone from Faerûn, it is true, but I can't really advise you on how she'd behave. My guess would be she will continue to seek out luxury but I wouldn't bet on it."

"It's my gut feeling too," Gibbs said, "but we'll cover all the bases anyway." He turned his attention to Major Davis. "You think her target is the meeting at the Pentagon, right? How would she have learned about it?"

Davis frowned. "Not from the SGC," he said. "There's no way any of SG-1 would have told anyone. They've been keeping secrets for years. It has to be either at the Faerûn end or else someone in the International Oversight Authority."

"If it's the… other planet that's the leak there's no way we can follow it up," Gibbs said.

"I might be able to do something," Burleigh said. "Where was it set up at that end? Neverwinter?"

"Rilauven," Davis replied. "Neverwinter just finished fighting a war and they're in a lockdown."

Burleigh pursed his lips. "I might be black but I'd stick out like a sore thumb in a Drow city," he said, "and so would anyone else we could send. It would be worse than trying to conduct an investigation in Japan. It's a dead end. I'll see what I can find out about the Oversight people. They're the most likely source of the leak anyway. Everything goes to hell when the politicians get involved."

Gibbs nodded agreement. "Yeah, and they always do," he said. "But if they did let something slip who would do something about it? Something like this, I mean. Going to the media, or trying to make political capital out of it, would make sense but not bringing in an indestructible hit-woman from another planet to bust up the meeting."

"It has to be The Trust," Burleigh said. "They were a syndicate of businessmen and politicians who were obsessed with hijacking the Stargate program to grab alien technology for their own ends. Including stealing it from allies, some of them way more advanced than us, and who got seriously pissed at having their cool shit stolen. We put some of the Trust people in jail but most of them covered their tracks too well. Then they came up with the idea of using chemical weapons against the Goa'uld. That went about as well as you would expect. They killed as many of our allies as the enemy. Then we went looking for them, they bugged out on a captured spaceship, and fell right into the hands of the Goa'uld. They came back with snakes in them, bringing more to put into their cronies, and took up where they left off except that they weren't even vaguely on Earth's side any longer."

"And you don't know who they are," Gibbs said.

"If we did they'd be locked up or dead," Burleigh confirmed. "We got some of them when they tried to start a nuclear war, just so they could grab a particular piece of technology, but we know there are more out there. And inside the Beltway is just the kind of place they'd hang out."

"Alien lobbyists," Gibbs said. "That could explain a lot."

Burleigh gave a brief grin. "You see the problem? How do we tell one lot of slimy snakes from the others?" His face turned serious again. "Even the ones who are still human can be just as dangerous and might even have more of a motive for this operation. One of the allies they killed in the chemical attack was Cierre's significant other. They'd sleep a whole lot easier in their beds if she was dead."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

McGee looked up from his computer. "We got something, Boss," he reported. "Cheyenne Doyle flew in on Monday from Cleveland."

"Cleveland? What the hell's in Cleveland?" Gibbs growled.

"Maybe a cell of The Trust," Burleigh suggested. "We'll look into it once we've caught Doyle."

"Me too," Gibbs declared, in a tone that brooked no denial. Whoever had hired Doyle, or brought her in from another planet, was ultimately responsible for DiNozzo being stabbed and Ziva thrown out of a fifth-floor window. And _nobody_ hurt members of Gibbs' team and got away with it.

Burleigh nodded. "Yeah, you got the right," he said, "and maybe you'll come up with some angle we haven't. Fresh mind, fresh approach."

Cierre released the slide on the SIG P-228 she'd been loaned and fed a round into the chamber. "Ideally I would like some practice with this before I use it in earnest," she said, "but I should be able to give a fair account of myself. I have used one before but my usual sidearm is the FN Five-seveN."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "Unusual choice," he commented.

"We use the P-90 as our standard combat weapon," Cierre explained, "and it's handy to be able to use the same ammo. And the armor-piercing capabilities are important against the Jaffa and some of the things we encounter on Toril." She holstered the gun, drew it with blinding speed, and then holstered it again. "But this will do for now."

"You realize you can't carry that in Washington?" Agent Dorsey pointed out. "It's against the law."

Cierre frowned at her. "What about the Second Amendment to the Constitution?" she said. "I learned about that in my citizenship class."

"There are local laws that take precedence," Dorsey said. "I guess they don't want everybody running around with guns right where the President lives. There are restrictions on gun ownership and no private citizens can carry concealed weapons in DC at all. You might be employed by the Air Force but you're still a private individual. So no wearing the gun outside this building."

Cierre pursed her lips and wrinkled up her nose. "Then I shall have to rely only on my knife," she said. "I ask that you return it to me."

"I don't see why not," Gibbs said. "It doesn't count as evidence any longer. Where is it now, Abbs?"

"In the evidence lockers," the forensic scientist replied. "You want I should go get it?"

"Yeah, do that," Gibbs said, and Abby departed.

"I might be able to get you attached to AFOSI on a temporary basis," Burleigh suggested. "You wouldn't have any powers of arrest but you'd be able to carry the gun."

"That would be useful," Cierre said. "I thank you."

"It might take a while, though," Burleigh went on. "I'll have to get hold of the Director and he's out of town for the weekend."

"I have my Director right here," Gibbs pointed out. He looked at Jenny and raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm," Jenny said. "I don't know off the top of my head what the relevant regulations would be but I'm sure I could come up with something that would allow our… guest to carry a firearm legally. I'll go and look into what precedents there are for deputizing a civilian employee of the Armed Forces as a temporary NCIS agent. It should be straightforward enough." She walked off toward the stairs leading to her office.

"Can I have an NCIS cap?" Cierre asked Gibbs. "They are very smart and would be effective at keeping the sun out of my eyes."

"Hey, you're Air Force, you should wear an AFOSI cap," Agent Blenkowski said.

At that moment the elevator doors opened and Ziva walked into the squad-room. She looked in surprisingly good shape considering she'd reported being thrown through a window, Gibbs thought; she had no visible injuries and her clothing all seemed intact. She seemed to have lost her Star of David pendant, and she was wearing her cap tipped further back than usual, but otherwise she looked exactly the same as when she'd left the office at lunchtime.

"What are you doing here, David?" Gibbs growled. "I told you to stay with DiNozzo at the hospital."

"Sorry, sir," she answered. "I need to speak to Cierre."

"Never apol…" Gibbs began, and then his hand flashed to his gun. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded, leveling the weapon at Ziva's head.

"Your worst nightmare," came the reply, and the thing wearing Ziva's face crossed her hands and drew out two SIG-P228s.

Gibbs pulled the trigger and hit her smack in the center of the forehead. She just laughed and returned fire, using both guns at once gun-fu style, and missing Gibbs by a couple of feet as he dived for cover. A CRT monitor on McGee's desk exploded in a shower of sparks as a bullet shattered its screen. McGee had hurled himself clear just in time, leaving his gun sitting on his desk, and flattened himself against a filing cabinet. Agent Drummond, at Ziva's desk, snatched at her gun but before she could get it leveled Ziva pistol-whipped Drummond across the side of the head and sent her crashing to the floor.

Agent Blenkowski and Cierre opened fire simultaneously. Ziva's cap flew from her head, its peak shredded, and two holes half an inch apart appeared in the left breast area of her windcheater. The shots had no other effect. Ziva advanced, still shooting, and hit Blenkowski in the left shoulder. Officer Dorsey, who had thrown herself flat to get out of the line of fire, reached out so that the muzzle of her gun was only inches from Ziva's leg and pulled the trigger. Ziva didn't even flinch. Her left-hand gun tilted down and fired. Dorsey cried out, her gun dropped from suddenly limp fingers, and she stopped moving.

Burleigh had pulled out, not a gun, but an oddly-shaped device that writhed in his hand until it looked like a striking snake. He aimed it at Ziva and fired a beam of blue light from the weapon. Ziva yelped, the first sign she'd given that anything had hurt her, and turned both her guns on Burleigh. He dived behind a desk and rolled away.

Gibbs ran, doubled over in a crouch, to seek cover behind a room divider. He saw Cierre doing the same thing but she went in the opposite direction and vanished from his sight. Once in a partially protected position he opened fire on Ziva again. His heart was pounding and he could feel a cold sweat on his brow. Major Davis had described the snake-like alien Goa'uld entering the body of a human, wrapping around the spine, and taking permanent control of the host. Was that what had happened to Ziva?

He heard Cierre, somewhere out of his sight, yelling something about the power of a snow leopard. Meaningless and so to be ignored. Then a new gun opened up, Jenny's Glock 17, firing down from the balcony in front of her office. A beam of blue light from a ray-gun, presumably fired by Major Davis, lanced down from the balcony and struck Ziva simultaneously with a second blast from Burleigh's weapon.

Ziva… changed. Suddenly she was six feet tall, her clothes had transformed into a beige jacket and pants, and her hair was short and spiked up. Her eyes glowed with a silvery light. "_Help… mmmeee…_" she moaned, her voice metallic and echoing, and then she changed again. Still six feet tall but with long blond hair and a face Gibbs had seen in a photo. Cheyenne Doyle.

"Naughty worm!" Doyle said, in the tones of a normal human but a voice completely unlike Ziva's. She swung her right-hand gun to aim at McGee, who was now exposed to her fire, but before she could pull the trigger Cierre emerged from behind a partition and hurled herself bodily at Doyle. Her gun was nowhere in sight and she was relying entirely on her strength and speed.

Cierre seized Doyle by the right arm and heaved. The gun went off, blowing a hole in the plasma screen above McGee's head, and then Cierre swung Doyle around and hurled her to crash into the wall beside the elevator doors. Cierre followed up instantly, grabbed hold of the arm again, and twisted until Doyle was forced to drop her gun. Doyle brought her left arm around behind her back to bring her other pistol into action; Cierre released her grip on the right arm and deflected the left so that the shot missed. Then Cierre grabbed Doyle's left arm, wrenched it upward into a hammer-lock, and started to bash Doyle's face into the wall with brutal force.

The impacts shook the wall and rattled the glass in the windows. Doyle's face should have been pulverized, her skull shattered, but she merely laughed. "A little help here!" she called.

A ring of fire appeared behind her and a smell of burning sulfur filled the air. Inside the ring there appeared a monstrous being; six feet tall and of roughly humanoid shape but broader, with furry legs ending in feet bearing three claws, a long tail, bat-like wings, and a horned head with a long beard that writhed as if alive in its own right. It held a pole-arm, with a saw-edged blade two feet long at the end of a four-foot shaft, in its claw-fingered hands. The circle of fire went out and left the monster standing there, its head turning as its eyes swept the room, but otherwise motionless. Then bullets from Blenkowski, and from McGee who had now snatched up his gun, struck the creature and it roared out in rage.

"Silver!" Cierre yelled. "Kill it with silver!"

Good advice, no doubt, but where were they to find silver? There was no… yes, there was. Gibbs dived for his desk drawer, pulled it out with frantic haste, and opened the box of his medals that DiNozzo had stashed there. Most of them had minimal silver content but one, the Naut Tahrir al-Kuwait medal struck by Saudi Arabia for those who had participated in Operation Desert Storm, had genuine silver prongs protruding from a gilt medallion. Maybe it would serve as a throwing star…

Meanwhile the beast – it could only be described as a devil, what with the horns, the tail, and the wings – turned its attention to Cierre. It swung its weapon at her neck. She dodged away and pulled Doyle into the path of the blow. The devil pulled back its strike and managed to avoid hitting Doyle. The blonde, now that she was no longer being repeatedly slammed into the wall, flipped herself into the air and spun around to free herself from the hammer-lock. Cierre grabbed the gun and twisted it from Doyle's hand before the escape maneuver was complete. She fired twice, aiming at the shaft of the demonic creature's weapon, and shattered it. Then she tossed the gun across the room just as Doyle punched her in the jaw with one hand and made a futile grab for the pistol with the other. Cierre rocked back as the punch hit her but retaliated at once with a back-fist strike to the middle of Doyle's face and a left hook to the floating ribs. Doyle took the punches without flinching and struck back.

Gibbs found the medal he was looking for and groaned in disappointment. His memory had played him false. The prongs were blunted and the ones opposite the ribbon were too short to inflict any worthwhile injury. The longer prongs, near the ribbon, might just be usable as a weapon if he slashed across the creature's eyes but that would be the only vulnerable point. A beam from one of the ray-guns hit the monster; it growled, dropped its broken weapon, and took a stride that brought it almost to within arms' reach of Gibbs.

Then the elevator doors opened and Abby stepped out.

The sound attracted the devil's attention and it turned in her direction. Abby recoiled, her mouth dropped open, and she dipped her right hand into a pocket.

Gibbs reacted without conscious thought. He took hold of the medal, turned it so that the longest points were at the front, and leapt at the beast. He used the medal as if it was a punch-dagger and slammed a blow into the creature's kidney area – assuming it had kidneys. It was like punching a brick wall. The heel of his hand erupted in agony as the prongs were driven into it. But it was worth it. The devil uttered a roar that carried a definite note of pain and turned away from Abby.

It swung a massive fist at Gibbs' head. He ducked under the blow and punched it in the gut. Again he was rewarded with a cry of pain from the creature; again the points of the medal inflicted damage on his hand. The beard of the devil writhed and reached out for him. Some instinct warned him that allowing it to touch him would be a very bad idea and he dodged back. The beast followed up. Its clawed hands opened and it raised them to grab at him with both at once. Then it jerked, stiffened, and froze motionless. Abby had come up behind it and used her Taser. The immobility lasted only a second and then it began to move again.

"Boss!" McGee yelled. "Silver! Catch!"

Gibbs turned and McGee threw something to him. A ball-point pen, from DiNozzo's desk, that Gibbs remembered DiNozzo had claimed to be of sterling silver. Not something Gibbs had ever cared about before, any more than he cared about what make of shirts or shoes DiNozzo wore, but now he had to hope that DiNozzo hadn't been making false claims. Gibbs dropped the medal, snatched the pen out of the air, and instantly thrust with it. The devil, probably still somewhat dazed by the tasering, didn't react quickly enough and Gibbs struck home precisely where he aimed. The creature's right eye.

It sank in deep. The devil bellowed in agony and grabbed for Gibbs' hand; he released the pen, leaving it embedded in the wound, and snatched his hand away. The beast took a stride toward him, its hands reaching out to grab, and then it froze once more as another ray of blue light struck it. At once Gibbs seized the opportunity and lashed out with the heel of his left fist, striking the protruding pen, and driving it all the way into the devil's eye socket. The creature reeled, staggered backward, and uttered a piercing shriek that sounded like something that would come from the whistle of a wounded steam locomotive. A greenish fluid, presumably the creature's blood, oozed down its cheek into its beard.

"If it bleeds, we can kill it," Agent Blenkowski said. It was so exactly what DiNozzo would have said in the circumstances that Gibbs felt a renewed stab of anguish. The monster staggered, reached out an arm vaguely in the direction of Gibbs and clutched at nothing, and then dropped to one knee. It caught hold of the edge of Ziva's desk, tried to push itself upright, and then lost its grip and fell face-first to the floor.

"My knife!" Cierre yelled. "Quickly!"

Gibbs looked past the fallen devil and saw that Doyle was no longer exchanging blows with Cierre. She had produced a knife, presumably the one with which she had stabbed Sherman and DiNozzo, and was striving to drive it home. Cierre was holding onto Doyle's arm, keeping the knife away, but she was being repeatedly punched and kicked and was starting to look a little worse for wear.

"Here!" Abby called. Cierre held out her right hand and Abby slapped the hilt of the dagger into Cierre's palm.

"You're fucked now, bitch!" Cierre growled. Doyle seized Cierre's wrist as the knife came forward and now the women each strove to keep away the other's knife while trying to strike with their own. They seemed evenly matched in strength but Cierre had the edge when it came to making effective use of feet and knees to strike at the legs and lower body of her opponent. Doyle, however, absorbed the vicious blows without flinching. Then Cierre pinned Doyle up against the wall and began to bang her wrist against the solid surface in an attempt to make her drop the dagger. Cierre's own knife crept closer to Doyle's breast.

And then Doyle was gone. There was a sound like a light bulb imploding and Cierre was facing nothing. She stumbled and her hand smacked into the wall.

Doyle reappeared at the other side of the room, where Cierre had tossed her gun, and bent to scoop it up. "I'll be back!" she said, in a deep voice that indicated that she was quoting Schwarzenegger, and then she vanished again with another popping sound. This time she did not reappear.

Gibbs looked around. Burleigh was bending over the unconscious body of Agent Dorsey; the look of concern on his face changed to one of relief and Gibbs deduced that Dorsey's injury was not as severe as it had appeared. McGee was checking out Agent Drummond who also lay unconscious. Agent Blenkowski was now cradling his left arm in his right hand; his shirt-sleeve was red with blood and it was dripping onto the floor.

The body of the devil was melting away, shrinking and fading, shriveling up and becoming insubstantial. The silver ball-point pen could be made out through a skull that was now semi-transparent. "What the _hell_ was that thing?" Gibbs asked.

"Barbazu," Cierre said. "A bearded devil. Do not touch its glaive for it causes wounds that do not heal. And I hope you did not let its beard touch you for that carries disease."

"And Doyle?" asked Gibbs.

Cierre wiped away a trickle of blood from her nose. "An Erinyes devil," she said. "Very intelligent and very dangerous."

"Ya think?" Gibbs said. "She came close to killing all of us. If those ray-guns hadn't slowed her down she probably would have done."

Major Davis was descending the stairs. "The zat'nik'tels should have killed her," he said. "Against humans one shot knocks you unconscious, two shots in quick succession usually kill, and three disintegrate the body. Unfortunately, we've found, it doesn't always work like that against things from Cierre's home planet."

"Devils are not alive in the same sense that we are," Cierre said, "but had we zatted her enough times it would have worked eventually. Probably."

"There was a moment," Davis said, "where she seemed to be a Goa'uld."

"That is so," Cierre agreed. "One of The Trust must have thought to take for itself a host that cannot be slain by bullets. It thought it could control her. It was wrong."

"Except for that few seconds when the zats got to her," Davis said. "And it was calling for help."

"Indeed so," said Cierre. "It is, practically speaking, in Hell. And now I understand how it is that she can operate so effectively on Earth. She can draw upon the knowledge of a Goa'uld who must have been here for a long time."

"That doesn't sound good," Davis said.

"A devil with the knowledge of the Goa'uld could be a deadly threat not only to Earth but to Faerûn," said Cierre. "We must find her and kill her."

"That's not going to be easy," Gibbs said.

"You slew a Barbazu with a pen," Cierre said. "That was a mighty feat of arms." She dipped her head. "I salute you."

"You're pretty good yourself," Gibbs said, "but I'd rather have a way of killing her at a distance." He met the eyes of Jenny Shephard, who had descended the stairs behind Major Davis, and saw her raise an eyebrow. "I think arresting her is a non-starter," he said. "Did she… teleport out of here?"

"She did," Cierre confirmed, "and you are right, she could do the same to escape from any confinement. She must be killed." She bared her teeth in a mirthless grin. "There is more," she said. "Now that she has seen this place she can teleport here as well. She said that she would be back; we must be on our guard because she could return at any time."


	5. Five: Admiral Ackbar

**Five: Admiral Ackbar**

Tony and Ziva entered the squad-room and stopped dead in their tracks. Seven handguns were aimed straight at their faces, plus two oddly-shaped devices that were obviously weapons too, and even Abby was holding her Tazer ready for offensive action.

"Uh, Boss," Tony said nervously, "what's with the pistol-packing reception committee? You knew we were coming and, okay, I wasn't expecting a cake but pointing guns at us is a little over the top."

"Two hours ago Cheyenne Doyle walked in here looking exactly like Ziva," Gibbs said, "and came within a cat's whisker of killing every one of us. I think we've an excuse for being a little jumpy."

"I guess so," Tony said. "This is like a scene from that Chuck Norris movie, 'Code of Silence'. These two punks go to rob a bar, and walk in and draw their guns, only it's the bar where all the off-duty cops hang out and two seconds later they've got thirty guns pointing at them. I kind of get how they must have felt now."

"Well, that sounds like DiNozzo," Gibbs said. His pistol muzzle dipped by perhaps two thirds of an inch.

"Uh, Doyle quoted from movies too," said a man Tony didn't recognize. He was almost as tall as Tony, although of course not as handsome, and the 'AFOSI' legend on his cap revealed him to be an agent from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The left sleeve of his shirt was ripped and stained from shoulder to elbow with what had to be blood. Tony had a matching stain across the bottom of his shirt and all over the top half of his pants.

"Good point," Gibbs said. "Okay, DiNozzo, what's Rule Six?"

"Never apologize, it's a sign of weakness," Tony replied at once.

"Oh, so that's how you knew," a chunky African-American AFOSI agent remarked, incomprehensibly as far as Tony was concerned. Gibbs merely nodded in reply.

"I only know Rule One," Cierre said.

Tony was somewhat perplexed as to how the African girl, who had been a prisoner in Interrogation when he had left the office, was now free, pointing a gun at him, and wearing an NCIS cap. "Which version?" he asked. "Never screw over your partner, or never leave two suspects together?"

"Neither of those," Cierre said. "My Rule One was taught to me by Sharwyn, who was taught it by Buffy, and it is 'Don't Die'."

"A worthy rule," Ziva said, "but sometimes hard to keep." Then her forehead furrowed. "You speak Hebrew?" She turned to stare at Tony. "And you understood her?"

"Oops," Cierre said. Her left hand went to a pendant at her neck. "I am sorry, Major Davis. I forgot, even though I promised you I would remember."

"What are you talking about?" Tony said, frowning at Ziva. "She's speaking English. And it seems to have improved since lunchtime, which is a little weird."

"She spoke in Hebrew," Ziva insisted.

"Uh, maybe you hit your head when you went out of the window," Tony said.

"It was you who received a fractured skull," Ziva said, "and perhaps the miraculous treatment you received did not repair all the damage."

"Well, that sounds like the DiNozzo and David I know," Gibbs said, "but I think we'll ask a few more questions before we put the guns down."

"I've got one," Abby said. "Ziva, what's the name of my rhino?"

"If you have a rhino you have not told me about it," Ziva said. "You have a hippo named Bert."

Cierre stared at Abby and her eyebrows shot up. "You must be wealthy to have room for such a large creature in a city," she said, "and is the climate in Washington not inimical for a tropical beast?"

"Bert is a stuffed toy," Abby explained.

"Oh. It was foolish of me not to think of such a simple explanation," Cierre said.

"I guess it's another thing you have to learn about this country," Abby said, smiling at Cierre. "Don't worry, you'll get it eventually."

"Now that's different," Tony said. "When we left here Abby was looking at Ms LuaLua as if she wanted to strangle her. Now she's being nice."

"Quite a change in attitude," Ziva agreed.

"Anyone who bashes Cheyenne Doyle face-first into the wall is okay by me," Abby said. "Plus, she saved Tim's life."

"Is that so? Then she's okay by me too," said Tony. "The place wouldn't be the same without McGeek." He glanced around. "In fact it isn't the same anyway, and I don't just mean the Christmas tree that's sprouted up since we left. Or all the new faces. The room smells funny. Like a Laundromat. And McGee's got a new monitor."

"The smell is from the stuff the cleaners used to get the blood out of the carpets," Gibbs said.

"And Doyle put a bullet through my old monitor," McGee added.

"So they gave you a nice new LCD one," Tony said. "Why couldn't she have shot mine? The clunky old one takes up way too much room on the desk."

"She was aiming at me, Tony," McGee pointed out. "You weren't here to be shot at."

"No, because she stabbed me in the guts," Tony said, "and I'm a little unclear about how come I'm not dead or in surgery with months of recuperation to follow. Maybe, once you all stop pointing guns at me, somebody could give me an explanation?"

"I think this game of 'Truth or Dare' at gunpoint has gone on long enough," Jenny Shephard said. "These are the real DiNozzo and David, I'm quite convinced, and we could be using the time more productively."

Gibbs nodded and holstered his gun. "DiNozzo, you're going to get read into Project Blue Book. Ziva, you're not."

"But I need to know," Ziva protested.

"It's not up to me," Gibbs said. "The Project is multi-national and some of the other nations don't trust Israel. What you need to know is that Cierre's one of the good guys. Cheyenne Doyle… isn't. She's been… hired… to kill Cierre, and probably several other Air Force employees, and she'll kill anyone who gets in her way. And she has certain… advantages. She can change her appearance, she can… well, I guess you would have to call it 'teleport', and she can't be harmed by normal bullets or by getting her head rammed into a wall hard enough to crack the brick."

"I stamped on her throat," Ziva said, "and it only made her annoyed. It should have crushed her larynx."

"I'll see your stamping on her throat and raise you shooting her in the face," Tony said. "If she can't be harmed by normal bullets then what does harm her? Silver bullets?"

"Got it in one, Tony," Abby said.

Tony's eyes opened wide enough to seem in danger of falling out of their sockets. "Huh? What is she, a freaking werewolf?"

"An Erinyes devil," said Cierre. "She is highly resistant to injury from normal weapons. Only silver, or an enchanted weapon like my knife, can slay her. Although she does seem to be somewhat vulnerable to electricity."

"Erinyes? As in the Ancient Greek Furies?" Ziva asked.

Cierre shrugged. "I don't know anything about the Ancient Greeks," she said.

"I, uh, think the Greeks based their myths on the kind of thing that she is," Tim chimed in.

"Sounds more like something out of one of your games," said Tony.

"Where do you think the game designers got their ideas?" Tim said. "I know it sounds crazy, Tony, but Cheyenne Doyle really is something other than human and she's lethal. She fits the description of that kind of devil… except that she doesn't have wings."

"They can retract their wings so they can pass as human," Cierre supplied. "But if she catches you outdoors she might grab you, fly up a hundred feet, and drop you again. Watch out for that."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Bodhi jerked Charlotte Mayfield's head back and thrust the barrel of her SIG into the Trust agent's mouth. "I hope you've been a busy girl," Bodhi said, "because if you haven't come through for me… then a bullet is going to come through you."

Mayfield rolled her eyes wildly. Bodhi withdrew the gun barrel and Mayfield gasped for breath before speaking. "I have everything you asked for," she said, "I swear. The credit cards, the IDs, the sonic grenades… everything."

"And I'll need a new iPod," Bodhi added. She sat down on the edge of Mayfield's desk and tapped the balls of a Newton's Cradle executive toy with the barrel of her gun. "Those frigging NCIS agents fried mine. I want it loaded with plenty of Guns N' Roses and AC/DC. Oh, and 'I Touch Myself' by Divinyls. I love that one." She tapped the steel balls again and set them swinging and clicking.

"I don't understand how you know so much about Earth," Mayfield said. "You didn't get that from Athena." She wiped away a smear of blood from where the gun barrel had nipped her upper lip against her teeth.

"I've been here before," Bodhi revealed. "That's why I was selected when you were stupid enough to summon a devil. Oh, by the way, Athena says 'Hi'. No, that's not quite right, really she says 'Please, I beg you, stop torturing me', but that's not going to happen. Give me the fucking iPod."

"I will, I will," Mayfield said. "Eighties bands? You were here that long ago? Way earlier than the Stargate was operating?"

"Actually it was May 2002," Bodhi said. "Put some Linkin Park and Jimmy Eat World on the iPod, too, while you're at it. And hurry the fuck up. I don't have all day."

Mayfield picked up her phone and gave orders to her aide Devon. Bodhi's gun lifted and remained trained on Mayfield until the conversation had finished and the phone had been replaced.

"Back to business," Bodhi said, lowering her gun. "This might not work and we could do with a back-up plan. You'd better get the Trust's mole in NCIS busy. If she can find out the identity of the representative of the Bridesmaids it could make all the difference."

"Even the SGC don't know that," Mayfield pointed out.

"They _say_ they don't know," Bodhi said, "but that doesn't mean it's the truth. Maybe they'll let it slip to NCIS now. And any extra information could be vital. Just do it." She pursed her lips. "Oh, one more thing. I need a replacement designer outfit. The one you gave me has a few bullet holes in it. That might raise eyebrows at the hotel reception desk."

"You ruined my Givenchy?" Mayfield's mouth dropped open in obvious horror.

"Technically the NCIS and AFOSI agents ruined it," Bodhi said. "They're the ones who shot me. Anyway, give me a replacement, something equally expensive, or I'll rip out your fucking tongue." She gave Mayfield a sweet, and patently insincere, smile. "Isn't it lucky that we're the same size?"

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"So they took the tube out of my throat and pretty much sent me on my way," Tony related. "They didn't even ask for my insurance information. And every question I asked they just answered with 'It's classified'. I don't even have a scar. If it wasn't for all the blood on my clothes I'd be wondering if somehow that bitch didn't stab me after all. And Ziva says she was cut to pieces by glass shards and the hospital just gave her something to drink and her cuts healed right up. Come to think of it, two of the AFOSI agents were covered in blood, and it looked like it was their own, but they're walking around fine and I didn't even see any sign of bandages. What's going on?"

Gibbs lowered his coffee cup. "Major Davis will explain," he said. Only Gibbs and Major Davis were in the Director's office with Tony; Ziva was changing her clothes, Director Shephard was following up an independent line of inquiry of her own, and the rest of the agents were busy with various tasks downstairs.

"You get the explanation after you sign the non-disclosure agreement," Major Davis said.

Tony rolled his eyes but signed. "Okay, so what's the big secret?" he asked. "Aliens?"

"Actually, yes," Major Davis said. "And don't bother with the expressions of disbelief. I heard them all earlier from Special Agent Gibbs and Miss Sciuto. It didn't take long to convince them."

Gibbs nodded in confirmation. "It's true, DiNozzo," he said. "Believe it." He raised his cup to his lips and took another drink.

Tony sucked in his cheeks, closed one eye, and then let his cheeks out again. "If Gibbs believes it then I guess I'll have to," he said, "and my experience at the hospital doesn't fit with anything normal. But, seriously, aliens?"

"Aliens," Davis confirmed. "Cierre is an alien. The treatment you received originated on her planet. It's rare and expensive even there and, consequently, the supplies we've been able to obtain are usually only for the personnel of the SGC. Luckily you were taken to the emergency department at George Washington University Hospital and that's one of the few places where any of it is kept. It's supposed to be exclusively for the President."

"Then how come they gave it to me?" Tony asked.

"Cierre insisted," Davis said, "and I got on to the hospital and gave the right code words. Luckily we'd already moved the President out of town, when we heard there was an alien assassin in the vicinity, and I was able to take the risk."

"Cierre insisted? Well, I have to thank her, but I'm surprised," Tony said. "We didn't exactly get off to a good start, what with me pointing a gun at her face and everything."

"She felt that it would be her fault if you died," Davis explained, "and she was already blaming herself for Sherman's death. And, before she joined us, she was tricked into killing someone who was definitely one of the good guys. She doesn't want any more deaths on her conscience."

"I'm all for her not having my death on her conscience," Tony said. "She's an alien? Not from the Democratic Republic of Congo?"

"Her ears are real, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "Ducky examined her. She's an alien. Accept it and let Major Davis move on."

"I'll keep it short," Davis said. "In 1928 archaeologists found an object in Egypt that turned out to be a Stargate. A way of opening wormholes to allow almost instantaneous travel to planets orbiting other stars. It was useless then, in the days before computers, but eventually the Air Force got it working and we started sending exploration teams to other planets. And we met aliens. Unfortunately some of them are distinctly unfriendly and we've been fighting a low-intensity war for the past eight years."

"Low-intensity?" Tony grinned. "So, no humungous spaceships coming to blow up the White House and the Empire State Building?"

Major Davis pursed his lips. "Umm, well, that almost happened," he admitted. "Twice. Luckily we have allies out there too. But it's not relevant to the present situation."

Gibbs gave Davis a hard stare. The Major hadn't said anything about the bombardment from space scenario when he'd given the original briefing.

"Cierre comes from a planet called Toril," Davis went on. "It's a strange place. The inhabitants fight with bows and arrows, and swords, but they also have some… advanced techniques… they call magic. And our physicists can't come up with any better explanation. Most important are their healing methods. They can manufacture potions that can heal wounds instantly. That's what the hospital used on you and Officer David. And I had a few in my briefcase that we used to patch up Agents Blenkowski, Dorsey, and Drummond. There's only one left, and the nearest re-supply is in Colorado, so try not to get stabbed again."

"I hear you," Tony said, "but it's not like I had a choice. Shooting someone in the face usually stops them being able to stab you."

"Yes, well, the woman – or creature – who calls herself Cheyenne Doyle is one of the less pleasant inhabitants of Cierre's planet," Davis said, "but I'll get to her in a minute. Anyway, obtaining as many of the healing potions as possible is one of our top priorities but the ruler of the city nearest to the planet's Stargate will only allow limited trading. We need to open up new supply routes and, if possible, recruit some of the natives to work with the SGC. Especially the ones who can cast healing spells."

"Hold on a minute," Tony said. "SGC?"

"Stargate Command," Davis expanded. "We've arranged a meeting with a representative of an organization on Toril called the Bridesmaids. Normally any meeting like that would take place at Cheyenne Mountain but this time they asked for it to be in our capital city. We're really keen to stay on their good side so we agreed. It's set for Tuesday, eleven hundred hours, at the Pentagon. I think Doyle intended to kill Cierre, impersonate her, and take her place at the meeting. And then kill the representative."

"Or she could just walk in, like when the Terminator stormed the police station in the first movie," Tony said, "and ignore the guards shooting her. You have to cancel the meeting."

"We don't think she can withstand multiple hits for long," Davis said. "If it comes down to it, and we don't have any other choice, we'll cancel the meeting. But that's very much the last resort. How will it look to our prospective allies if we have to admit we can't protect their ambassador in our own capital? We need to stop Doyle first. And find out who brought her here."

"If she's a devil then would it have been some kind of black magician who summoned her?" Tony suggested. "Like in 'The Devil Rides Out'? Christopher Lee played the good guy in that one, for a change, and the wizard was the guy who was Blofeld in 'Diamonds Are Forever'."

Gibbs transferred his coffee to his left hand to free his right up for a head-slap. Major Davis, however, sat up straighter.

"A black magician? I hadn't thought of that," Davis said. "It might explain how she appeared in Cleveland. That was puzzling me. We'd thought the only place outside Cheyenne Mountain where a wormhole to Toril could be opened was in California."

"California?" Tony narrowed his eyes. "That rings a bell." He thought for a second. "Doyle said something about California while I was bleeding on the floor. She… uh… that's it! She looked at my gun, or maybe Ziva's, and said 'SIG P-228? I used to have one of these. I took it from a California cop just before I killed him.' And then she kicked me in the head and put me out."

"She killed a California cop?" Gibbs set his coffee cup down. "There'll be a record of that. We might learn something. Anything else?"

"Only that she didn't even try to act innocent," Tony said. "She must have decided to kill us the moment we walked in. And she was stronger and faster even than Cierre. Oh, and she was playing 'Welcome to the Jungle' when we got there and she said it was her favorite song."

"Playing 'Welcome to the Jungle'? What's that, a game?" Gibbs asked.

"It's a song, Boss," Tony explained. "Guns 'N Roses. It was featured in the last Dirty Harry movie. The worst one. But the song was a big hit. Not exactly my thing but it's memorable."

"I think I vaguely remember it," Gibbs conceded.

"And yet a… devil… from another planet knew it well enough for it to be her favorite," Tony said. "How come?"

"You need to know about the Goa'uld," Davis said. He ran through an abbreviated explanation of the parasitic aliens.

When he'd finished Tony winced. "They sound like the alien in 'The Hidden'," he said. "A sci-fi movie with Kyle MacLachlan. This creepy alien climbed into human bodies and turned them into crazy thrill killers. If I remember right it could patch up the host body so they could take a whole lot of damage before they went down. If those Gould things can do the same maybe that's what Doyle is and she isn't a devil at all."

Davis shook his head. "They can heal their hosts to some extent," he said, "but a head shot will kill them just as dead as a human."

"That will be why Cierre told us to double-tap Doyle in the head," Gibbs put in.

"That's right," Davis confirmed. "Body shots will work but if the host stays alive long enough the Goa'uld might manage to extricate itself. You need instant kills."

"So Doyle isn't a Goa'uld," Tony deduced, "or I would have killed her."

"Actually she is," Davis contradicted him. "She's a devil with a Goa'uld inside her. She showed it, just for a second, when I hit her with a zat'nik'tel – that's a Goa'uld energy weapon. And the Goa'uld actually pleaded for us to help it. I presume it thought that someone invulnerable to most weapons would make a better host than a human, and it would be able to take control. It found out, too late, that it was wrong."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"Anything to report, McGee?" Gibbs asked. DiNozzo, behind him, listened with one ear but his attention was elsewhere. Ziva, now wearing a light grey track-suit emblazoned with the NCIS logo, was at the far side of the bullpen with Cierre. They appeared to be instructing each other in various martial arts moves and the two women, moving lithely, were an irresistible draw to DiNozzo's eyes.

"We've made some progress, but I don't know how useful it will be in the short term, Boss," McGee answered. "We've been investigating the credit card Doyle used at the hotel, and for the plane flight," he went on. "If her identity is a fake, put together in a few days, it wouldn't have been simple to match it up with a working credit card. So we looked deeper."

"It's a company card," AFOSI Agent Drummond took over, "issued on the account of a company called Supermaterials Research Inc."

"A holding company, registered in Delaware," McGee added. "They don't conduct any business. All the company does is receive royalties on a few technology patents and pay off credit card bills. It's tailor-made for funding people using fake identities."

"So who controls the company?" Gibbs asked.

"That's not going to be easy to find out," Drummond said. "Corporations registered in Delaware don't have to file or record any details when there's a transfer of ownership. The beneficial owner on record is a guy in a place called Sark, in the Channel Islands off Britain, but I'd bet he was just a figurehead and he won't have a thing to do with the company now."

"A straw owner," McGee said. "Finding out who really owns the company is going to take way too long to be any help. But we might be able to find out what other credit cards have been issued."

Gibbs nodded slowly. "So when Doyle moves on to a new identity we'll be a step ahead of her. How long will this take?"

"It's not going to be quick, Boss," McGee admitted. "There are too many safeguards designed to stop people finding out credit card information. We'd need to go to the offices with a court order and there's no way we can do that before Monday. But if we get the names of new hotel reservations, and use that as a starting point, we should be able to spot any of them who got their card through this company. Either Doyle or someone else up to something hinky."

"It's something," Gibbs said, "but not enough. I've something else for you to work on. Doyle let slip in front of DiNozzo that she'd killed a cop in California and taken his gun. There'll be a case file on record. The odds are it will just be down as 'unsolved' but there might be something useful. Like a connection that will give us a lead on Doyle's backers."

"California's pretty big, Boss," McGee pointed out. "Any idea of where or when?"

"Concentrate on Sunnydale, Santa Barbara County," Major Davis suggested. "That's the most likely place for Doyle to have been. In fact she might have been there right before she went to Cleveland."

"Okay, I'll start just before the Cleveland flight and work backwards," McGee said.

"I'll stay on the credit cards and hotel reservations," Drummond said.

High heels clicked on the floor as Director Shephard descended from the MTAC room and approached. "I've something else for one of you to do," she said. She held out a notebook. "That outfit Doyle was wearing was a Riccardo Tisci original from Givenchy's Fall Collection," she said. "I've managed to get a list of everyone in the States who bought one. Someone on the list has to have had contact with Doyle."

Drummond took the notebook, turned over the first page, and her eyebrows rose. "It's pretty short," she said. "It won't take all that long to work through it."

"Haute Couture doesn't sell in quantity," Jenny Shephard agreed. "And you can skip some of the names. I think we can rule out Beyoncé."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Abby's laboratory was a hive of activity and was filled with the smell of white-hot metal. Abby was heating a crucible with a propane burner; AFOSI agents Blenkowski and Dorsey were doing something with bullets at one bench and, next to them, Burleigh was feeding rounds into a magazine. For once Abby's stereo wasn't blasting out industrial rock at deafening volume and the whir of the extractor fan was clearly audible.

Gibbs waited until Abby had poured out the contents of the crucible into molds and then produced a Caf-Pow from behind his back. "How's it going, Abbs?" he asked.

"It's hard work, Gibbs," Abby responded, snatching the drink eagerly. "The melting point of silver is way higher than lead and that makes it tricky. But we're getting there."

"You're making silver bullets?" Tony asked.

"Not solid silver," Abby said. "We're just packing the cavities of normal hollow-point bullets with silver. That's the best we can do for the moment. If only Winchester Silvertip bullets were real silver that would save so much work." She began to suck on the straw of her Caf-Pow.

"Where's the Lone Ranger when we need him?" Tony lamented. "Hey, if Doyle's a devil maybe we could have her exorcised."

"She'd put a bullet through the priest's head before he got anywhere," Gibbs pointed out, "or just teleport away. We need to kill her."

Abby lowered her Caf-Pow temporarily. "That gives me an idea," she said. "Would holy water work on her?"

"It's an idea," Gibbs said. "I noticed she wasn't wearing the Star of David, when she was pretending to be Ziva, so maybe she is vulnerable to holy things. We'd best ask Cierre. She's the expert."

"I've got something that I'm pretty sure will work on Doyle," Abby said. She picked up two letter-openers from her desk and passed them to Gibbs. "These are sturdy enough and sharp enough that I thought it would be a waste to melt them down. One for you and one for Ziva."

Gibbs assessed the knives. "They'll buckle if they hit a rib," he delivered his verdict, "but I wouldn't want to take one in the throat. Rule Nine: never go anywhere without a knife. And now we've got knives that will work on Doyle. Good thinking, Abbs."

"What about me?" Tony asked. "I hope you've got some silver for me."

"Sure, Tony," Abby said. "Doyle dropped Ziva's gun but she's still got yours. We thought you might like to use your .45 so I've made one mag of silver tips for it and I can start on another one. Or we've got lots of nine millimeter if you'd prefer another SIG."

"Given a free choice I'd take a fifty-caliber machine gun," Tony said, "but that would be a little unwieldy for carrying around Washington. My .45 would be the next best thing. Thanks, Abby."

Agent Burleigh handed Tony a full magazine. "We didn't get introduced upstairs," he said. "Special Agent Amos Burleigh, AFOSI."

"Special Agent Tony DiNozzo," Tony responded, shaking Burleigh's hand. "Pleased to meet you. Nothing says 'hello' like a magazine of silver bullets."

"And a hearty 'Hi Ho, Silver, Kemosabe," Agent Blenkowski chimed in.

"Who was that masked man?" Tony responded. He gave Blenkowski a broad grin.

"Pete Blenkowski," the AFOSI agent introduced himself. He grinned back at Tony. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Round up the usual suspects," Tony answered.

"Are you going to strangle them, or should I?" Burleigh asked Gibbs.

"I usually find a slap across the back of the head is enough," Gibbs replied. "DiNozzo! I've got a movie for you. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That's what you look like you're starring in. Change into something that isn't soaked in blood, get your Colt, and be ready to move the second we have a location for Doyle."

"Sure thing, Boss," Tony replied. His cheery grin altered slightly and became something feral and menacing. "I'm looking forward to a rematch. Only this time on our terms."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

"This can't be right," Tim muttered. "The town has a population of 38,500 but they've lost more cops in the line of duty than Metro DC."

"What have you got, McGee?" Gibbs asked from behind him.

Tim jerked in his seat, startled by Gibbs' silent approach, something he could never get used to despite it happening at least once every day. "Uh, not much, Boss," Tim admitted. "I can't tie up anything in the past year with Doyle killing a policeman and taking his gun. And if she flew from California to Cleveland she didn't do it under that name. I doubt if I'll learn anything useful soon enough for it to be any help."

"I wasn't expecting much anyway, McGee," Gibbs said. "That line of inquiry might lead us to whoever hired – summoned – Doyle but it won't help us find her now. You might as well get back to checking the hotels."

"On it, Boss," Tim responded.

"I've got something," Agent Drummond declared. "There's someone on the Director's list who will bear closer examination." She put a photo up on the plasma display. "Charlotte Mayfield. Vice-President of Farrow-Marshall Aeronautics, a technology company based in Bethesda."

Gibbs frowned as he looked at the woman's picture. "Blonde, slim, high cheekbones; she looks quite a lot like Doyle," he observed.

"And she's very tall," Drummond went on. "Six feet, or close to it, and pretty much the same build as Doyle, so Mayfield's Givenchy outfit would fit both of them. But here's the clincher. Guess where Mayfield was last week?"

If one of his own team – almost certainly DiNozzo – had asked a pointless question like that Gibbs would have responded with a cold stare or a cutting remark. As Drummond wasn't under his command he refrained and merely supplied the obvious answer. "Cleveland?"

"Got it in one," Drummond confirmed. "She came back the day after Doyle came to Washington."

"Hmm," Tim said. "An aerospace company. I wonder if they've passed on any technology patents to Supermaterials Research?"

"If they have it was probably through cut-outs," Drummond said.

"That doesn't mean we can't back-track and find a link," Tim said. "It just means it will take longer." He pursed his lips. "Or they could be doing the funding by making payments on patents that don't really exist."

"Keep on it," Gibbs ordered, and he turned away towards where Director Shephard was approaching.

"The news media have gotten hold of the hotel stabbing story," Jenny announced. "I've fielded two calls from reporters so far. Also Leon Vance called and wanted to know if he should come in; I told him no. Then Erica Barrett called, and then Agent Keating. I told them the same thing."

Gibbs groaned. "All we need is for reporters to start turning up here in person," he said. "Either we scare the pants off them by shoving guns in their faces or else we risk one of them being Doyle and her blowing Cierre's head off."

"I've downplayed the incident quite a lot," Jenny said, "and I don't think we're in any danger of being overrun by reporters. But if we are then we'll have to find some middle ground between brandishing guns and leaving ourselves open to attack. Perhaps we should send Ms LuaLua back to the interview room to carry on reading _Deep Six_ in safety. Or…"

At that moment the elevator doors began to open and Jenny, contradicting what she had just said, immediately pulled out her Glock and aimed it.

Gibbs spun around at the first sound from the elevator and drew his gun. At the desks Tim McGee and Agent Drummond snatched up their guns. Major Davis readied his ray-gun but kept it low and out of plain sight. Cierre and Ziva, still exchanging martial arts techniques, released each other and pulled out their weapons. Cierre held her gun in her left hand while using her right to remove the translation amulet from around her neck. Ziva noticed the action with her peripheral vision, and her eyebrows rose fractionally, but her attention primarily was concentrated on the new arrival. DiNozzo, now clad in clothes free of bloodstains, had been watching the two girls but was quick to draw his Colt and join everyone else in aiming it at the elevator door.

Agent Michelle Lee stepped out of the elevator and, like Tony and Ziva half an hour earlier, froze as she saw the guns aimed at her. She looked over her shoulder, saw nothing, and turned to look back at the guns. Her eyes widened and she paled visibly. "Uh, guys," she said, with a distinct tremor in her voice, "could you, uh, put the guns down?"

"Not yet, Agent Lee," Jenny said. "First we're going to ask you some questions." Lee's eyes, already wide, widened still further.

"We're up against a killer who successfully impersonated both David and a six-foot blonde," Gibbs added, "so we're taking precautions."

Lee seemed to relax slightly and the widening of her eyes became less extreme. "I don't understand," she said.

"Just answer the questions," Gibbs ordered. He left the questioning to the others; Lee had served as an agent on the Major Case Response Team for a while, two years ago, during the period when Gibbs had taken a temporary leave from the agency. Consequently McGee, DiNozzo, and David had more personal knowledge on which to base questions and Director Shephard came into contact with Lee more often during the normal course of work.

"Okay, I'm happy that she's the real thing," McGee said after a few exchanges.

"Yes, that is Michelle," Ziva confirmed.

"With that established," Jenny Shephard said, "what are you doing here, Agent Lee? We've had phone calls from a couple of agents but you're the only one to just turn up."

"I… heard on the radio that an NCIS agent had been stabbed," Lee replied. "I was only a couple of blocks away so I came in to see if there was anything I could do to help."

Gibbs turned his head to look at Major Davis.

"I really don't want to read anyone else into the program," Davis said, "so she'd have to operate on the same basis as Officer David."

"I guess that's fair," Gibbs agreed. "Okay, Agent Lee, since you're here there is something you can do. We need some court orders." He decided to delegate the tedious details. "McGee, tell Lee what we need."

"Sure thing, Boss," McGee said. He gave Lee detailed instructions on what was required.

"That's straightforward enough," Lee said, "but do I really need to include Diners Club? Hardly anyone has a Diners Club card these days."

"Ha!" said DiNozzo. "It's like I said. You're the only person who uses Diners Club who still has all his own teeth."

"Actually," Agent Drummond put in, "they're still widely used for high-end corporate cards."

"Which is exactly what we're looking for," McGee said, aiming a triumphant grin at DiNozzo.

"Just do it," Gibbs ordered. "Doyle's bound to move on to a new identity before long, if she hasn't already, and I don't want us to miss it because we didn't bother to check out some possibilities." McGee's phone rang as Gibbs was speaking and the young agent answered it; Gibbs ignored the phone conversation for the moment.

"I won't get it before Monday morning," Lee said.

"Do it faster," Gibbs said. "Haul a judge away from his dinner table, whatever it takes."

Lee grimaced. "I'll do what I can, Gibbs."

McGee finished his phone call and looked up. "Boss, we've got a lead," he announced. "That was the receptionist at the Hay-Adams. A very tall woman turned up, said that she'd had to travel at too short notice to book ahead, and asked if they had a room. She's taken a suite. And her name is… Dakota O'Brien."

"I get the 'Dakota'," DiNozzo said. "That's another name for the Sioux so it ties up with 'Cheyenne'. But I don't get 'O'Brien'."

"Conan O'Brien… Arthur Conan Doyle," McGee explained. "It has to be her."

Gibbs grunted. "It's a little too obvious," he said. "Why would she use a name that points straight to her? Even if she didn't know the connections the people providing her fake ID would know. It has to be deliberate and that means she wants us to know where she is."

"Or she doesn't care," DiNozzo suggested. "If she thinks we can't hurt her she'll just expect to kill us if we burst in. I mean, she took me and Ziva like Grant took Richmond and she probably thinks she can do it again."

"Could be that she wants to split us up," Gibbs said. "We go over there in force and she hits us here. The trouble is we don't have any choice." He narrowed his eyes. "But we'd better have more evidence than just the name before we go in with guns blazing."

"Already checked out, Boss," McGee said. "The card she used comes from the same source as the one in the name of Cheyenne Doyle."

"Good enough for me," Gibbs said. He got out his phone and dialed Abby. "Abbs, send everyone up here," he told her. "We've a lead on Doyle."

Within a couple of minutes Abby, the other AFOSI agents, Dr Mallard and Jimmy Palmer were all in the squad-room.

"I doubt if we'll have anything more for you to do, Ducky," Gibbs said. "You and Palmer might as well go home now."

"Actually I'm rather looking forward to the chance to perform an autopsy on the, ah, person who styles herself Cheyenne Doyle," Ducky said.

"I suspect we won't be able to, uh, retrieve her body," Major Davis pointed out. Gibbs deduced that Davis was watching his words because David, Lee, and Palmer had not been read into the program and that what Davis meant was that he expected the body to melt away like the bearded devil had done.

"A shame," Ducky said, "but I can live with my disappointment as long as we can get confirmation of her death. There are, however, other things with which I can get on. I would appreciate, for instance, the chance to talk with Miss LuaLua now that she is no longer a suspect. I… suspect… that she would have many fascinating tales to tell."

"All of which will be classified, Ducky," Gibbs reminded him, "so you won't be able to pass them on to anyone else."

"Satisfying my own curiosity will be sufficient," Ducky said.

Cierre grinned at him, the contrast of her white teeth against her jet-black skin making the grin quite dazzling, and dipped her head. "I happy to talk," she said, "but first we kill Doyle."

"You're not coming with us," Gibbs stated. "That would be crazy."

The grin vanished. "It my job to fight things like her," Cierre said.

"Not in Washington it isn't," Gibbs replied.

"General O'Neill ordered us to protect you," Agent Burleigh reminded Cierre. "Letting you put yourself in harm's way would be a dumb way of obeying."

Cierre pouted. "If that are General Jack's orders I have to do what you say," she said, reluctant acquiescence evident in her tone.

"Okay, let's put a strike team together," Gibbs said.

"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit," DiNozzo said. Agent Blenkowski, grinning widely, chimed in and completed the quote in chorus with DiNozzo. "It's the only way to be sure."

"You cannot use nuclear weapon in Washing…" Cierre began, a deep frown furrowing her brow, and then she grinned again. "Oh! I stupid! You speak words of Ripley. I watch 'Aliens' with T… Murray. Very good movie."

"DiNozzo, you're coming with me," Gibbs said, "but no nukes. Stick to your Colt."

"Right, Boss," DiNozzo responded.

"I'd better come too," Burleigh said. "That way we have one weapon that we know can hurt her and Major Davis can stay here with the other one. Drummond, you keep doing what you're doing. Dorsey, get onto Metro PD. We had to leave the St. Regis crime scene to them. I want to know if Doyle left anything behind."

"On it, Chief," Dorsey said.

"Blenkowski, you stay here too," Burleigh went on. "Cierre is your responsibility. Keep her alive."

"Will do, Boss," the former pilot agreed.

"David, you can fill the last slot on the strike team," Gibbs said. "Abbs, give Lee a mag of the special bullets. If Doyle comes here again I want us to have maximum firepower."

"We should set up a password," Jenny Shephard suggested, "so that we don't have to go through the whole Twenty Questions routine again."

"Good idea," said Gibbs.

"How about 'I'm Spartacus'?" Blenkowski said at once.

"Works for me," Gibbs agreed. "Okay, people, time to move."

"Yeah," DiNozzo said. "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown."

- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 -

Doyle, or O'Brien, had gone for a suite at the Hay-Adams, one of the St. Johns Church View suites, just as she had at the St. Regis. This time, according to the reception staff, she was a green-eyed redhead; still recognizable, however, as the same woman as the blonde Doyle in the photo from the bar. That removed the last vestige of doubt and Gibbs felt happy to go in weapons-free. The receptionist confirmed that O'Brien hadn't come down since she checked in and the team headed up to the room ready for action.

DiNozzo operated the master key-card as quietly as he could and then threw the door open. They entered quickly, guns raised, and fanned out. There was no-one in the living room. The bedroom door was partly open and they could hear the sound of a woman singing softly coming from within. It seemed as if she hadn't heard their entry.

_I love myself_

_I want you to love me_

_When I'm feeling down_

_I want you above me_

_I search myself_

_I want you to find me_…

Burleigh came to a halt, his eyes on three pottery jars that stood on a desk, an expression of extreme worry on his face. The AFOSI team leader's moustache gave him a slight resemblance to the astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson; at the moment, Gibbs thought, he resembled Tyson if he'd peered through his telescope and spotted a medium-sized asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Gibbs didn't know what was so disturbing about the jars; they seemed innocuous enough, probably antiques, with sculptured lids shaped like the heads of animals and a bird. They looked kind of… Egyptian.

Burleigh moved on but he gave the jars a wide berth. Gibbs didn't know why, and there was no way he was going to ask out loud, but he followed the AFOSI agent's example and treated the jars as if they were radio-active. Gibbs signaled for DiNozzo to go right, and David to go left, and advanced.

From behind the bedroom door a metal ball hurtled out, bounced once, and rolled across the carpet. A red light on the sphere pulsed.

"Grenade!" Burleigh yelled, and he dived for cover. Gibbs was already moving; he'd registered the spherical object as a weapon without the need for conscious thought. He scooped up Ziva as he turned and made a dive for the exit door. DiNozzo threw himself on top of the sphere, smothering it with his body, and his big Colt .45 roared as he fired at the bedroom door.

And then the device detonated.


End file.
